Global giants including Apple and Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp are believed to be considering rival bids for the internet company Yahoo, which has received a $44.6bn offer from Microsoft.
The conglomerate InterActiveCorp was another company named as a potential bidder for Yahoo, which is said to be unwilling to give in to Microsoft without a fight…
Yahoo chief executive and co-founder Jerry Yang is understood not to be Microsoft’s greatest fan, and would be prepared to line up another ‘white knight’ rather than concede to Ballmer.
It is believed he would be particularly open to a rescue bid from Steve Jobs’ Apple Corp, having openly expressed his admiration for the firm in the past.
Tee hee.
I’m having a hard time understanding why Microsoft is interested in Yahoo. It’s not like Microsoft is raking in the money with MSN, so why are they going after Yahoo. Screw them up too?
I can think of 44.6 billion reasons why Microsoft should NOT buy Yahoo and instead concentrate on making a good product. Something like a new operating system that doesn’t suck?
Microsoft should chill out, circle the wagons and make their next release of Windows a huge success.
Linux still isn’t getting too many converts but I see more and more Macs everyday and not just at Starbucks.
If Apple’s interested in this deal, then this is a perfect time for Microsoft. Let Apple flounder around with Yahoo! while Microsoft creates a Leopard killer.
Probably won’t happen though. Apple’s probably trying to drive up the price and Microsoft will pay even more. Just my opinion anyway.
That would be a huge mistake for Apple. Steve not that dumb.
I agree with echeola. This is just some rumor that’s trying to be funny.
Ummm.
I need a little Clarification here…
I KNOW, that AT&T and SBC AND Yahoo are all owned by the same group…
WHO OWNS WHO??
AND IF this goes thru, does MS get parts of the OTHER corps..
sounds like a QUICK way to BUY into the Telco BACKBONE, and SAVE MONEY.
“…Microsoft creates a Leopard killer.”
LOL!!! I just shot milk out of my nose!
Conspiracy theory:
Microsoft doesn’t really want to buy Yahoo. They want another company (like Apple or NewsCorp) to out-bid them, then watch them go down in flames trying to make it profitable.
Apple doesn’t have $50 billion in cash sitting around, so they’d use up all their capital and still have to be leveraged to buy Yahoo.
Why does Jobs, even in good photos, look like a giant douche?
If Apple does bid on Yahoo, it’ll only be to mess with Microsoft. By bidding, Apple could drive the price up for Microsoft and get MS all hyped up about their Internet divisions, further neglecting Windows. Then Apple could swoop in and drive up their market share at Microsoft’s expense.
If this story is real Apple better not over estimate what they have and if Microsoft isn’t playing them. What happens if they outbid Microsoft and Yahoo expects to be bought by Apple but in the end, it was just a joke.
I’m sure there would be a lot of legal issues.
As they say, if you can’t afford it, don’t try to bid on it just to raise the price because in the end you just might actually win.
I really don’t see Apple having $50 billlion just to buy Yahoo. Now that would really make no sense.
Balmer is Barmy. We all know that Microsoft for at least the last couple of years has been touting the business of ad revenue. It’s fairly obvious that Balmer believes that he can do to Google what Internet Explorer did to Netscape, and even if he looses money initially he will try and make it up once Google is out of the way.
Consolidate both Yahoo and MSN under one roof to cut expenses, then drive the price of advertising down to put Google in the red and Yahoo/MSN to the front.
Good luck.
This is even sillier than MS buying Yahoo. No way, no how.