In a surprising move, Microsoft has called off the dogs and will no longer pursue a Yahoo acquisition by any means. It appears that Microsoft was prepared to go hostile until Yahoo's board made it clear that they were willing to commit corporate suicide in order to prevent such a takeover by outsourcing its search-ads business to Google - essentially dumping the talent that Micosoft was hoping to acquire by the takeover.
There is a lot of speculation out there for what this means for the I/T world: Steve Balmer being fired as a failed CEO, Yahoo's stock suffering a fatal plunge in a "Black Monday" selloff, Google announcing formal acquisition of Yahoo, antitrust charges being filed against Google, etc. We'll have to wait and see what reality brings.
But as a Yahoo stockholder, I am glad to know I will not soon be a Microsoft shareholder.
Monday, May 05, 2008
Microsoft to Yahoo: "No mas!"
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2 comments:
I heard an interesting theory this morning that MS will back off for a week or so while Yahoo!'s stock tanks. MS will then swoop in as the great hero's of Yahoo! that they always wanted to be and buy it for $25/share rather than the $35/share they were willing to pay. This sounds like a very plausible situation to me.
I have heard the same theory. But most analysts now believe it is unlikely, since the internal opposition within Microsoft to a YAhoo merger has metastasized.
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