The only good thing about Microsoft buying Yahoo is the Microsoft Partner benefit

Microsoft has proposed an acquisition of Yahoo! and you can read the multitude of opinions at techmeme but I figured I’d offer you one more: The only side to benefit from the potential merger will be the Microsoft partner.

Microsoft acquisition of Yahoo, if it happens, will be a giant move backwards for the Internet in general because it will certainly bring with it the Microsoft “our platform or death” mantra to one of the biggest contributors and users of open source software. In other words, the kiss of death.

However, for a Microsoft Partner program this is a potential savior because it may signal the end of Microsoft’s decade long track of failures trying to reaching consumers (bCentral, MSN, Live) and maybe, just maybe, it will take Microsoft’s eyeballs off the vapor of ad sales long enough… perhaps long enough so they don’t end up destroying the revenues they are actually making by selling software for the revenues they hope to make by turning them into a service and antagonizing every single partner away from them.

Seeing how Google just reported that social networking ads are not translating into major bucks, Microsoft’s distraction with an actually successful portal might signal the end of the quagmire that is their business software platform transitioning to partner-less SaaS.

If I were Jerry, I’d take the cash.