No, I am not saying that this change will enable Yahoo! to win the search engine race. I have already uninstalled Yahoo! Axis from my browsers and iPhone, because I am not sure if it tracks my browsing activity and history.

Jon Mitchell, on ReadWriteWeb, highlights an important feature of Axis: “Axis is an attempt to do something noble and important. Yahoo has taken away the search results page, the intermediate step where a search engine makes most of its money, in order to get the user straight to where she’s going”. Of course, this can be termed as a milestone for search engines. But, this step is exactly opposite to the philosophy of Yahoo! few years ago.

To prove my point, I would like to quote a paragraph from The Google Story by David A. Vise:

(context: why Yahoo! refused to buy the technology developed by Sergey Brin and Larry Page)

Yahoo, seemingly a logical buyer because it relied on directories edited by people and didn’t have a fast way to scour the entire Internet, also turned down the chance to buy or license the Google technology. In part, Yahoo rejected it because the firm wanted computer users to spend more time on Yahoo. The Google search engine was designed to give people fast answers to their questions by swiftly sending them to the most relevant Web site. The Yahoo directories were designed both to answer questions and to keep people on the Yahoo site, where they could shop, view ads, check their email, play games, and spend more money and time, rather than less.

Huh. Great change Yahoo!, but too late.