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Google May Scrap Yahoo Deal 49

Posted by Soulskill from the packing-up-their-toys dept.
JagsLive points out a Reuters story which suggests that Google may walk away from its deal with Yahoo instead of accepting possible antitrust limitations from the government. The ongoing investigation of the deal by the Department of Justice has caused new concerns to be raised over whether the two companies have adequately addressed issues such as privacy and competition. From Reuters: "'Are they more serious about walking away? Yes. Have they decided? I'm not sure,' one source told Reuters on Friday. 'Yahoo wants the deal, and they're willing to have Google sign anything at the Justice Department to have them do it.' ... Part of the impetus of Google's walking away could be Yahoo's talks with Time Warner Inc about buying the content and advertising operations of its AOL unit. Google initially struck the deal with Yahoo as a way to fend off Microsoft Corp's unsolicited bid. Yahoo and AOL are conducting due diligence to see what a combined company would look like."
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Google May Scrap Yahoo Deal More

Google May Scrap Yahoo Deal

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  • Yahhooo! (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    As someone at Microsoft yells Yaaahhhhoooo!!!

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by MrNaz ( 730548 )

      While someone at Google throws a chair. How the tables have turned. Or chairs, as the case may be.

  • It's sad.. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by dalurka ( 540445 )
    It's sad that yahoo has to be sold at all.. I rarely use yahoo but it would be less than optimal to remove it from the competition. If it were removed there would only be MS and Google left as major search and advertising I think, please correct me if I'm wrong here.
    But I'd like it more if Google was the future owner of yahoo.. Microsoft is large enough in my opinion.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by MrNaz ( 730548 )

      Google actually has a stronger foothold in its primary market than Microsoft does in its, at the moment. Google is not embattled by free alternatives to its main product line that are catching up rapidly.

      If you ask me, Google is the company that we have the most to fear from at the moment, given that they are the biggest pushers (quietly) of "cloud" computing, which is essentially an effort to remove control from you of the computer on which you work.

      You can be as much of a fanboy as you like, but accept it

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by dalurka ( 540445 )
        I think you misinterpreted my post...
        I know fully well that Google is the largest actor on the online Ad market. And their other free "web" based tools are being pushed at unsuspecting consumers. Which I believe is bad mostly from a privacy standpoint, therefore I don't use any of their offerings for private communication and such.
        Also I don't like how the term "cloud" is gaining momentum. What is wrong with the good old Web or the Web 2.0? (which I also found silly)...

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ronocdh ( 906309 )

        Google actually has a stronger foothold in its primary market than Microsoft does in its, at the moment.

        I read this as saying that Microsoft's marketshare in the OS market is less than Google's in the search market. This would definitely be false.

    • Re:It's sad.. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by owlnation ( 858981 ) on Saturday November 01, 2008 @10:11AM (#25594535)
      I don't know if it's sad. Yahoo is a dead company. Its death is entirely of its own making -- corporate greed over user experience. For me their death is well deserved, can't happen fast enough, and I will revel in schadenfreude.

      That said. Your point is valid. There is nothing like enough competition in search. I find that search has never really met my expectations, and that it is doing so less and less. There has to be new ideas and new players in this market. Google is the only show in town, and Google is well and truly gamed.

      However, innovation in search is not going to come from Google, Yahoo or Microsoft. Corporations are far too bureaucratic, conservative, and slow to develop new ideas. If you work in a corporation it can take you months to get approval to even start work on a new idea. No, It is going to come in the same way it happened for Google. Two guys working in their garage, with a damn good idea. These guys can pick it up and run with it, much faster than any corporation ever could.

      The sad thing is that with the current credit clusterfuck there may not be funding for innovators. This is good for Google, but it's really bad for everyone else. Google seriously needs competition, it would even be good for them too, they are getting stale and a shaking up would do them a lot of good. There's been no significant innovation in search for 10 years. This is bad for everyone.

      • I wish my dead company had a P/E of ~19 and make consistent profits.

        http://finance.google.com/finance?client=ob&q=NASDAQ:YHOO [google.com]

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by dalurka ( 540445 )

        However, innovation in search is not going to come from Google, Yahoo or Microsoft. Corporations are far too bureaucratic, conservative, and slow to develop new ideas. If you work in a corporation it can take you months to get approval to even start work on a new idea. No, It is going to come in the same way it happened for Google. Two guys working in their garage, with a damn good idea. These guys can pick it up and run with it, much faster than any corporation ever could.

        Google actually lets its developers use 20% of their time to work on own projects...which is an emulation of the twho guys in a garage I think...It leads to innovation and many of the best google services were born this way.

        • Google actually lets its developers use 20% of their time to work on own projects...which is an emulation of the twho guys in a garage I think...It leads to innovation and many of the best google services were born this way.

          True, but by most reports, as the company has grown, internally it's been more and more difficult to get that 20% time. It's kind of the dark secret of the HR department that although they pitch 20% time pretty heavily to applicants, the reality is not the same.

          I get the impression the ones that do are either pet projects of higher-ups, or those who happen to be ahead in the internal corpo-political geek battles.

          Furthermore, it I've read that search is (not surprisingly) the most difficult team to get invol

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by owlnation ( 858981 )
          Even if it's the case that 20% of their time can be spent on side projects, that's still not really a mirror of the 2 guys in their garage model.

          Obviously those 2 guys can spend 100% of their work time on their idea (as well as much of their free time most likely). They should obviously do documentation and will wear a lot of hats, but they don't report to anyone and don't spend half their week in meetings, reports or preparing powerpoint presentations probably. I assume Google, like all corporations, re

      • I really feel sad for their employees

        I love their support for open source projects such as YUI and PHP :(

        My sites rely so heavikl

      • Oh, so right. Garages are our way of future inovations. If we can park a car in a garage, why not park an idea, or two on what to do next. We need to take this, next level. No playing around. A clusterfuck is putting things mildly. This is a sm clusterfuck with no orgasm. How whorable! Don't give up, maybe you, or someone like you can come up with a good concept, so we can take this BIG! How about artful official intelligence, where the search asks, "How are you doing? Would you care to see some p

  • What was Microsoft's top offer? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by kclittle ( 625128 ) on Saturday November 01, 2008 @10:00AM (#25594481)
    $33 per share, right? And now it's at $12 or $13? Hmmm... can you say "stockholder lawsuit"?
    • Is what's "good" for the company always high shre price? Maybe over the long run, if selling for a good price results in the demise of the company, than it's not really "good" for the sare holders?

      • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        >Is what's "good" for the company always high shre price?

        What's good for the company is whatever it's owners (i.e. shareholders) say it is. Period.

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • What's really sad is that Yahoo's CEO Jerry Yang had a lot of support from employees who feared that Microsoft would can them. The threat of their revolt was in part what drove Microsoft away.

      Now he's turning around and repaying them by announcing a second around of layoffs that will total about 10% of the workforce. Source. [cnet.com] Looks like everyone got the raw deal out of this. It makes you wonder if Yang even had a plan for Yahoo post-merger.

    • Except, you know, what happens to all those free software developpers at Yahoo! and Zimbra and such?

      You want to tell me that doesn't draw any income at all?

      Being bought up by Microsoft would lead to a tear-down of the company, effectively. Just steal the search engine and keep rolling.

      (and there was a lawsuit, IIRC, but it may have been thrown out for excess idioticy)

    • Microsoft made a mainly stock offer, of slightly over one share of MSFT per share of YHOO. At the time, MSFT was trading at about $28-29 per share, so this valued Yahoo at ~$31-32 per share. However, MSFT is now at $22, so had Yahoo's investors taken that offer, they would be sitting on something worth ~$23-24.

      Of course, they could've sold the Microsoft stock immediately upon completion of the deal for ~$31-32. But if they had wanted to do that, they could've just sold their Yahoo stock in the first place,

  • oh the irony (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    The DOJ wants more competition in web advertising but Yahoo just isn't competitive without this deal. They need this deal to go through otherwise they're dead in the water. What's going to happen? Yahoo will get bought out, reducing competition. Thank god the DOJ saved us from this collusion.

  • Yahoo! has lost the search engine war. If M$ buys Yahoo! they will basically whore out the Yahoo! page with ads and compete just as ineffectively as they always have.

    Google is ahead because M$ and Yahoo! don't know how to give the people what they want and until they get that down, they are doomed to failure.

    Google has always been in the dominant position because, let's face it, Google doesn't HAVE to buy Yahoo! They might buy Yahoo! to keep M$ from getting them but if it's too difficult why should th

  • I can't believe the government suddenly wants to regulate a merger. I thought that went out the window the day they let Microsoft off the hook with a slap on the wrist. Funny what a little economic meltdown will do.

    At least the Fed didn't decide Yahoo needs a bailout. Why not throw a few billion their way while they're at it? And I hate to bring it up, but my company could use a little propping up too. It's a one person business so a few million would probably do it.

  • Yahoo and AOL are conducting due diligence to see what a combined company would look like.

    Why does the Titanic come to mind?

  • A cat is no trade for integrity.

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