Kent may be right that things like this bother me because i still care, but Holy Mother of Alta Vista, this article is delusional. For those who prize their sanity, or don't want to have people wander by and ask why your jaw is on the floor, said article explains why Yahoo! (after killing off it's search engine and replacing it with Microsoft's Bing) is still a search engine.
Allow me to quote probably the most logically offensive bit of it.
As these companies become more successful, and as technology matures, many building blocks of these products are outsourced – even some of the most critical components.
Take a look at Boeing or Airbus aircrafts. They outsource their engines to Rolls Royce, United Technologies, and GE. But, does that mean that Boeing and Airbus are no longer airline manufacturers?
Uhm, not quite the same, dude. You see, Boeing and Airbus make these things called "airplanes" Those require these other things called "engines", which can also power things like helicopters, some cars and the occasional school bus. Boeing and Airbus do not call themselves Engine manufacturers (i'll note that a bit of using a search engine shows that Boeing used to build engines). Likewise, to follow more of your examples, HTC does not bill itself as a broadband chip manufacturer.
In short, Yahoo! proclaiming that they are a search engine at this point is a bit like saying i am a search engine because i know how to look up things on Google. No, Mr. Seth (and whatever marketing droid forced you to write up that post) you are a customer of search, a user of search, a reseller of search.
i know search engines. i used to work for a search engine. You, sir, are no longer a search engine.
(P.S. So very, very glad i left.)
