Yahoo Interested In a Microsoft Buyout, But Microsoft Isn't 174
Linux Blog writes "The Google-Yahoo advertising deal has been rejected by the Department of Justice, and Google has pulled the plug on a search-ad partnership with Yahoo that would have given Yahoo major new revenue, but that raised antitrust concerns. Now, Yahoo has said the 'For Sale' sign is still on its front lawn and that Microsoft should buy the company. The internet portal's co-founder and CEO Jerry Yang made this comment despite the fact Yahoo rejected a $33 a share offer from Microsoft back in May. What a huge loss for the share holders. Microsoft was quick to respond that their buyout efforts were a thing of the past, but left the door open to a search partnership."
Wait a sec (Score:4, Interesting)
I thought Yahoo gave MS the finger a few months ago. MS offered $33/share for Yahoo, who is now worth $14. Epic phail for Yahoo.
Re:Wait, what? (Score:2, Interesting)
Microsoft was never serious about yahoo. It was a two-fold attack -- demoralize yahoo (and their shareholders) and spook google.
Re:Wait, what? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Wait a sec (Score:5, Interesting)
A brilliant hand of poker played by Mr Balmer, I think.
I do wonder whether they ever would have actually bought Yahoo. There's no way they could buy them now at the price they originally offerred, thanks to the economic downturn. But if it wasn't for the downturn, I do wonder whether Microsoft would instead have done "due diligence" into the state of Yahoo the company, and then loudly and publicly walked away, claiming they didn't like what they saw, screwing Yahoo's credibility.
So without spending anything, Balmer's caused turmoil in one competitor (Yahoo), while getting the competition watchdogs interested in the power of another (Google) - and distracting them both, perhaps causing them to take their eye off the ball for a while.
Re:Wait, what? (Score:3, Interesting)
This is how I've taken it (not necessarily the way it is).
Microsoft initiates a hostile takeover bid for Yahoo! disrupting employee morale as well as investor confidence (and general mucking around like Microsoft tries to do). Yahoo! wasn't really in a position to be bought, thought the cultures would clash too much, etc., and rejected the offer.
Now that the economy has tanked, and Yahoo!'s share price is less than half of what MS was offering, they decide that perhaps a buyout was really in the best interest of the share holders (as well as their own bank accounts). They go back to MS and say lets make a deal, but MS's intention was never to acquire Yahoo! for its inherent worth, it was only to remove one more obstacle in the way of their internet dominance.
Now that the market has crushed their competitor, they don't have to spend any money to do it themselves. MS got exactly what they wanted in this situation: removing Yahoo! from the equation. And for an added bonus, they got to keep several billion dollars in the process.
If you look at IE, Windows Server, Pocket PC/WinMo, Zune, Xbox, etc, MS is rarely interested at taking on a market leader head on (they may act like they are, and say they are, however). What they do is destroy the smaller players until either they have market dominance (because the largest player has < 50% of the market, and MS has decimated the other > 50%), or they are second in the market which is generally still a profitable position.
Re:Wait, what? (Score:4, Interesting)
Microsoft got he DOJ to bite on the anti-trust front... of course if MS tries to by Yahoo, Google has an even better argument to not allow MS to have them... Oops. Reminds me of the Oracle-Peoplesoft takeover. Their board tried everything to prop the company up but investors left um swinging until Oracle was the only choice.
But it seems the real game was just to keep Yahoo from going to Google. Microsoft doesn't have to buy them now, just wait out for them to sink after all the stockholders are scared off. Then customers or business units can be picked off the carcass later.
Great Job DOJ! (Score:3, Interesting)
What's next - will we give Yahoo a few billion taxpayer dollars for a bailout?
Great system - government doesn't allow market to work - and then takes money to make it work (for sufficiently poor values of "work").
Re:Offer (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd hate to see microsoft buy yahoo just for that reason.
Is Steve Ballmer qualified to run a tech company? (Score:2, Interesting)
With Google, it was an understandable problem. But perhaps Microsoft is just playing games.
For me, the underlying issue is this: Have Steve Ballmer or Bill Gates ever made any statements that indicate that they have an understanding of technology? The book The Road Ahead [wikipedia.org] was surprisingly empty of information, and Bill Gates had co-writers for that book.
An answer to that question would help answer another fundamental question: Is Steve Ballmer qualified to buy Yahoo and improve the company? Yahoo paid Terry Semel $528 million for working 6 years, then fired him because he didn't know anything about technology, and other reasons. Would Yahoo going to Microsoft just be another case of billionaires trying to do something about which they know little, and care less?
Re: Mr. Ballmer's Poker (Score:3, Interesting)
See, you're partially on to something. For all his chairs, Ballmer is *sneaky*. We're still bashing Vista as their technical offering, but MS got to where it is by some clever business deals. Way back in the day John Sculley torched Apple when MS pulled a fast one on them.
Re:They don't need a new partner (Score:4, Interesting)
AOL died when dial-up died. it's been long enough that most of those users have learned how to use the web (the real one, not that AOL playpen crap).
the whole point of the internet/web is that there's no strict division between content-producers and content-consumers. and unlike TV/radio, you don't have a consolidated corporate media acting as gatekeepers of information. web users are free to find (search for) content that suit their own interests, no matter how odd or obscure those interests are. there's no censorship, and no spoon-feeding of pre-approved corporate-sponsored content. that's why indie music is on the rise, and file sharing has also boosted viewership of indie films. a "web portal" runs completely counter to that media freedom and independence--at least conventional Yahoo!-type web portals; iGoogle [google.com] is a different story since you can customize the modular layout, and anyone can create their own widget.
in any case, most ex-AOL users were pleasantly surprised by how much better the "real" internet/WWW was compared to their previously sheltered online existence using AOL. by the time broadband became standard in most households, the internet was already well established in mainstream culture, and the web had become a vital tool in the daily lives of ordinary people. so people no longer needed the digital training wheels that AOL provided. most people i know were quite glad to be rid of AOL's restrictive and overbearing services & interface.
the only people who still prefer the AOL "web experience" are the elderly who still haven't adapted to internet culture and the information age we live in. but even many 60-70 year-olds are taking to the web surprisingly well. and the rest are, well, going extinct. AOL died because they catered to a transitional market/demographic. the internet was still new and largely alien to most people, so their "well integrated," penned-in and sanitized online environment was in demand. but it's 2008 now, and if Yahoo! continues to chase a long gone 1990's market, then they'll become a technological anachronism just like AOL did.
Re:Offer (Score:5, Interesting)
My Yahoo (new version) is more like a web based full feature RSS reader now. So people having My.Yahoo as default start page aren't all exactly AOL etc. types.
A wing of Yahoo does perfect and future ready things even replying every single user flame on their blogs. Another wing, sadly, can't understand the need of IMAP in todays World, tries "Tower" ads in Yahoo mail, doesn't allow search.yahoo.com tab customisation, doesn't tie "Yahoo Widgets" prefs to user account and doesn't make that genius "Yahoo Go!" work on high end smart phones just because of a simple resolution setting.
I got like 5-6 tabs on My Yahoo and it is my start page since Yahoo invented it (about '98).
Yahoo has a serious image problem among slashdot geeks it seems. It is up to Yahoo and the companies, consultants they should hire to figure the base of the problem. What causes it? The valid reasons of course, not "yahoo.com being lame". Yes, it is lame since it targets the average web public. Not you :)
As you mention them, AOL's image problem is beyond fix. Even their CEO says something like that. I am afraid Yahoo gets same treatment while they do everything in favour of geeks and developers recently. They should fix it before it gets to AOL point.
Re:Wait a sec (Score:3, Interesting)
P/E ratio? This is the new economy, we don't even worry about having a business model, let alone ancient concepts like the P/E ratio. Yahoo has nine bazillion users, so it must be worth trillions. Not only does it have lots of users (which is all that really matters, dontcha know) it apparently even makes some money from somewhere - that must be worth an extra 2 or 3%.
Funny but true. Actual earnings really haven't mattered that much for the last 12-15 years because the economy has been driven by speculation riding on the back of ridiculously easy credit. Well the credit card finally got maxed out, and what happens? The trading price of everything collapses to something nearer its actual value - somewhere in the neighborhood of 1/3 to 1/2 of what speculative trading had inflated it to be.
It may be a convenient abstraction to say that a fair price of something is whatever someone is willing to pay, but it bears remembering that price =/= value. Sorry to all the neoclassical economics fans out there, but the value of things really is rooted in reality - it's not ALL a matter of perception. Recent events are the obvious case in point.