Microsoft Offers To Buy Yahoo

[Benjamin Dona]

It will be interesting to see how this shakes out.

Read more about it here.

[gibex]

Even if they get Yahoo, I don't think both can reach big G

[thataway61]

I stated in these forums a few years back when there was discussion about the new Microsoft Search and whether it would ever be competitive that ultimately Microsoft would dominate.

Bill Gates bought the original MSDOS for practically nothing and then dominated the whole PC arena. They are very smart and innovative, but where they excell is seeing bigger ideas in other peoples ideas, buying those companies and then dominating with the acquireds technology.

I think that part of their problem all along was not having a catchy name like "yahoo" or "google" that our parents and even grandparents recognize (msn and live are not catchy enough to have a cultish following). With the acquisition of a catchy name with existing traffic my bet is that they will learn to squeeze money from places no one at Yahoo was able to dream of.

Regardless of anyones thoughts, it will be interesting to watch.

[Bhamhomes]

Cal - you hit it right on the nail. There really isn't that many great names left in this space. I think this deal has a good chance of going through. There was little chance that Yahoo was ever going to get close to the $31.00/ share price that MSFT is offering to buy them for. I'm actually excited about this deal...of course I do own a few shares of big M in my IRA....lol

[Eric Blackwell]

I wrote some about it on my blog today...I will give Ballmer credit for one thing...He timed this perfectly. Whether they can unseat Google or not (I find that difficult to believe since G! has 70+% share of the search market, but interesting to watch them try! Here's why I think Ballmer timed it as well as he could:

Yahoo's stock price has pluumeted to WELL below what M-soft is offering. Very attractive to shareholders while remaining semi affordable.

M-soft is sitting on a pile of cash and contemplating slower growth in other sectors (read: software) ahead.

Their current search offering (MSN) was going nowhere and needs share to demand more advertiser attention and respect.

A number of Google's engineers have recently (Jan 1) become **cough**fully vested**cough**. Read into that what you will. Just my observation.

All in all it gives M-soft as much leverage as could be expected. Will they conquer G!, I don't think so, but I will be watching and just as interested as you are Cal. It was a good move on Ballmer's part and does not have to take down G! to be the right thing for them to do IMO...the synergy is there.

Best

Eric

[thataway61]

A number of Google's engineers have recently (Jan 1) become **cough**fully vested**cough**. Read into that what you will. Just my observation.

Retired?

[ericbramlett]

Good read from google here.

[webmaster]

Wow - someone actually sound a "bit" worried about this acquisition

Good read from google here.

[Micheal Pannell Realtor]

On the local news it say that yahoo is in talks with google also

[satxproperty]

Seems the G-man's Chief Counsel is worried ... making what sound like accusatory remarks about MS illegal influences over the PC.

Nope, not a MS fan. I used to be just as comfortable creating docs with command line vi on Unix (SunOS/Solaris) as with WP5.1, now Word on Windows.

(Oops! So, I gues I have assimilated.)