OK, maybe the rumored Microsoft-Yahoo merger apparently isn't going to happen. And maybe Forrester analyst Charlene Li is right that such a merger would be a bad idea -- there's no real upside for Yahoo, and a Redmond-Silicon Valley culture clash would all but be inevitable.

But the technology world has stared bad ideas in the face many times before, only to blunder ahead nonetheless. Shall we review the synergies apparent at the time of the AOL-Time Warner merger?

Even if there's no marriage to Microsoft on the spring calendar, Yahoo continues to face severe competitive issues, namely that Google is crushing it in terms of attracting users and advertising revenue.

Where does Yahoo fit into an Internet whose main engine of information-gathering and revenue generation -- search -- is dominated by Google? As this perceptive analysis points out, just two years ago the two companies had similar revenue. In the quarter just ended, Google's revenue was more than twice Yahoo's.

Worse, Yahoo's increasingly muddled business model -- remember last fall's "Peanut Butter Manifesto"? -- has blurred the company's image to Internet users, a group that naturally gravitates toward clear value-add. What's Yahoo's value-add? Is it in search? Video? Social networking? See what I mean?

If Yahoo continues to struggle with Wall Street expectations, and if it loses more and more ground to Google, shareholder pressure will force the company to seek a strong partner. And I still don't rule out Microsoft.