Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) is opening its advertising search marketing system, Panama, to new customers in the hopes of getting business from its major rival in the industry, Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG). Like Google's CheckOut service going after eBay Inc.'s (NASDAQ:EBAY) PayPal, the Yahoo! launch is probably too late. Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT) is also working on a search marketing system and the field is getting crowded.
If Google is smart, and it is, the company will have an upgrade of its service available to its customers within a few days of the full launch of Panama, a move that would take the wind out of Yahoo!'s sails.
Yahoo! is inviting hundreds of thousands of its customers to use the new service, but investors have to question why advertisers would go through the work and risk of moving from Google's highly successful platform to Panama.
The answer is that they won't.
Douglas A. McIntyre is a partner at 24/7 Wall St.
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