Microsoft on Saturday yanked its proposal to acquire Yahoo, saying the struggling Internet pioneer refused to budge on price despite the software giant upping its offer to nearly 50 billion dollars.
Talks aimed at resolving corporate dueling that began with Microsoft’s offer on February 1 to buy Yahoo for 31 dollars per share ended with the two firms unable to close a multi-billion-dollar gap in price expectations…
Ballmer said in a message to Jerry Yang that Microsoft did not intend to go hostile and buy the company directly from shareholders…
“Yahoo is going to have to convince the market they are worth more than they were before the Microsoft offer,” Gartner analyst Van Baker told AFP. “They have their work cut out for them.”
“Microsoft could be rolling the dice here,” Baker said. “They could be betting Yahoo’s stock price is going to collapse and they will be able to get it for even less.”
Frankly, Van, I don’t give a damn.
There are some fairly essential reasons why my time online doesn’t start with Yahoo, anymore. And never did start with MSN. I can’t see the two combined offering me anything new and useful.
I think Microsoft realized that, no matter what price they paid, half the Yahoo staff would quit rather than work for Redmond. They would be better off taking that $50 billion and hiring off the best coders from Yahoo, Google, and elsewhere.
Or better yet, they could stop screwing around with Internet ventures and get back to making a quick and reliable copy of Microsoft Windows. Wouldn’t that be nice?
Msoft always gets what they want, one way or another.
1 year from now (at most) yahoo will belong to microsoft.
Yahoo is going down. The current board CERTAINY will be when the shareholders get a hold of them!
A $50b offer put a value of more than 175% on the stock before the initial offer, and now its going to plummet right back down to (probably) below the pre-offer level, in the process pissing off pertyt much EVERY shareholder who has watched Yahoo falter more and more for the past 6 years.
This was their one big chance to cash-out and still make a small profit, but Jerry Yang has now cost them more than $30b collectively.
I bet I know who won’t be receiving many christmas cards this December.
Is Microsoft even relevant anymore?
Some of Yahoo’s financial interests – especially in China – think even less of the idea of working with Microsoft than do Yahoo staff.
Jack Ma, the head of alibaba.com has made it clear he’d rather have a wedgie of rusty barbed wire than have Yahoo’s 40% of his company transferred to Microsoft.
Yahoo just blew it’s chance of getting the stock to $37 in a decade. It’s gonna be a board meeting served with yesterday’s donuts.
I think MS could buy unbelievable amount of modern technology cloud computing for $37B. The internetis not only still young, it’s not even begun to address the even bigger mobility needs.
Congrats John! You said this would happen on Crankygeeks. This Microsoft/Yahoo merger was a bad deal from the git-go.
Watch Cranky Geeks and you will realize that Microsoft did watched Episode 114. I hope Google steps in and helps Yahoo a little more.
Too bad they can’t spend some of that money to fix Windows ME, er, Vista.
Talk about pressure. Yahoo’s current board must produce or they are toast.
Yahoo should take the money saved on the Yahoo almost debacle and invest in the best new talent they can hijack from colleges or steal from the competition.
They won’t.
They are too corporate and inbred with Windows to allow real innovation to grow there.
Yahoo will continue the slide into oblivion, and Microshaft will own them in a couple of years anyway.
Don
Woops, Microshaft should take the money they saved on the almost Yahoo debacle… It’s early, and I just woke up.
Don
The next model up is sporting the urban dude ranch/walking private paved wooden walkways assemble. The bland greens go good to hide the years spent under florescent lighting. The model is carry an emergency pack called a back pack. The emergency pack has .0034 cubic yard of storage for all essentials when adventuring down range on traverse terrain. There are several side pockets for your iphone, bear spray(public restroom size) and gps private helo locater for quick country extraction back to the base camp for 5 course meal from a private chief.
Number 1 – M$’s problems will NOT BE SOLVED by hiring more great coders !!! They already have plenty, the basic problem is M$ MANAGEMENT, and not technical staff !!! Until the management changes, M$ will never have a decent OS, only one that is dominant due to PRE-INSTALLATION ON NEW PCs !
This is almost like Microsoft buying AOL. Who cares! I really did not see
how Microsoft could benefit from it. It may have helped Yahoo more then anyone. I was more surprised to see Yahoo play hard to get.
I think Microsoft kind of messed up it’s own portal MSN. It really confused user’s with the Live stuff and still keeping some MSN things intact. In fact many user’s happy with Hotmail actually hate Live Hotmail.
Myself included in this. I actually rather get my mail through Safari because it defaults Hotmail to classic version. You know, none of Microsoft products are really bad. But, they don’t excite either.
Interesting pic; looks like Bill Gates is a hiker. There’s mud on those boots.
Personally, I’m glad MS isn’t going to try to buy/hijack Yahoo after all. I’m a member of several Yahoo Groups, and was concerned those groups would go away if Microsoft took over. Hopefully Yahoo will get its act together after this debacle.
Microsoft should spend its time and money on stabilizing Windows, and leave applications other than MS Office (which isn’t bad) to other companies.
You can read John’s Marketwatch column on Cage Match every week. This week’s article on the MS / Yahoo deal is quite interesting.
Microsoft will buy Yahoo 18 months from now for $8 a share instead of $33, so they’ll only be paying 25%.
Why not wait a little over a year for 75% off?
This was a vanity purchase anyway. Microsoft doesn’t need Yahoo for anything and everyone knows Microsoft would screw up Yahoo after the purchase.
As big of a fan as I was of Yahoo in the 1990s, they are more or less an AOL in the sense they haven’t adapted to change.
>>MS Office (which isn’t bad)
I guess you haven’t tried Office 2007 🙁
That’s a blow to microsoft’s ego. If billy boy was back in he’d throw a tantrum easily.
Watch Yahoo stock now tank. MS comes back and picks up for less than original offer. LOL