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Yahoo! Businesses The Internet Microsoft The Almighty Buck

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."
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Yahoo Interested In a Microsoft Buyout, But Microsoft Isn't

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  • Wait a sec (Score:4, Interesting)

    by log0n ( 18224 ) on Saturday November 08, 2008 @09:17AM (#25687211)

    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 a sec (Score:5, Informative)

      by gurps_npc ( 621217 ) on Saturday November 08, 2008 @09:21AM (#25687225) Homepage
      Not as bad as you made it look. The MS offer involved MS stock, and if people had taken it, they would now have about $20. Still not the best decision Yahoo ever made.
      • Stock values (Score:3, Insightful)

        by DesScorp ( 410532 )

        Not as bad as you made it look. The MS offer involved MS stock, and if people had taken it, they would now have about $20. Still not the best decision Yahoo ever made.

        Microsoft's stock is sure to go back up after the recovery comes. Does anyone honestly think Yahoo's is going to rise all that much?

        No, grandparent poster was right. Epic fail. It's one thing to hold out for a better deal when several companies want to buy yours. It's another when no one else really does.

        • Does anyone honestly think Yahoo's is going to rise all that much?

          Google = Obama, Yahoo! = McCain

          Got 'em right where we want em!

          But in all seriousness, Yahoo! needs to focus more on search.yahoo.com and less on... well whatever is going on with that front page!

    • Re:Wait a sec (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 08, 2008 @09:35AM (#25687299)

      $14? They're at $12.20 at the time of this posting, and they hit sub-$12 in the last 24h (and have done so dozens of times).

      Some respected business analysts said they're worth more like $7.50/share (WAY over inflated P/E ratio and such).

      And now Google and MS don't even want of them anymore. They should get with AOL, it would make for the most epic FAIL ever (worst than the previous bubble burst, just by themselves)

      Thanks god I don't have any YHOO stock!

      I for one, welcome our new epic FAIL overlords.

      • "And now Google and MS don't even want of them anymore."

        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
        • 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?
          .

          Microsoft saw a modest 2% growth in profits in its first quarter of FY2009. It held $21 billion in cash in September.

          Microsoft is one of the six companies in the industrial sector with a AAA corporate credit rating from S&P - and the first industrial to make the list in ten years.

          The others are Automatic Data Processing, Exxon Mobil Corporation,

          • It's true, Microsoft makes a lot of money. But is that because the company has a virtual monopoly on something every business needs? If someone had a monopoly on water, he could be richer than Gates and Ballmer put together.

            Anyhow, you didn't answer the question. I've never heard Bill Gates or Steve Ballmer say anything that indicates that they know about technology or are interested in technology. I'm not saying they know nothing, I'm just saying that, after all these years, there should be some evidenc
            • If someone had a monopoly on water, he could be richer than Gates and Ballmer put together.

              Yes and he would also have an incentive to protect the quality of the product! Capitalism's answer to environmentalism!

              • No he wouldn't. Why would he spend money to keep his aquifers pure? After all, nobody else is going to be able to provide the water people need, no matter how polluted the monopoly's water is.
        • I don't even get why you'd ask about Gates; hadn't he proved his mastery of technology and the market *long* before he retired? He got his start writing compilers.

          As for Ballmer... you may have a point, but you're talking about:
          * Microsoft doing really well under Ballmer, vs.
          * Microsoft doing incredibly well under "some mythical person who understands technology"

          So either way, Microsoft's doing well. They're one of the very, very few tech companies doing well in this economy, actually.

          • "Gates... got his start writing compilers."

            Gates wrote a Basic interpreter. Did you ever write a program for it? I did. It was quirky and limited and poorly documented. Writing an interpreter certainly qualifies someone as interested in technology. But the idealism that is required to be influential in thinking about technology was, and is, lacking.

            Microsoft bought DOS for about $80,000. About 10 man-years of programming effort were put into DOS. (Volunteers made the FreeDOS work-alike.) That made Mic
      • by mollymoo ( 202721 ) on Saturday November 08, 2008 @12:22PM (#25688251) Journal

        Some respected business analysts said they're worth more like $7.50/share (WAY over inflated P/E ratio and such).

        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%.

        • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

          Dude, the bubble burst almost nine years ago.

        • Yahoo has nine bazillion users, so it must be worth trillions.

          Well, perhaps eight bazillion users since some folks may not welcome the Redmondian overlords. I've got my escape pod over at Gmail ready to go should Yahoo! be boarded.

          DT

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by Bombula ( 670389 )

          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 speculat

    • by WK2 ( 1072560 ) on Saturday November 08, 2008 @09:42AM (#25687335) Homepage

      This reminds me of a generic story. Boy asks girl out on a date, and she says no. Two weeks later, girl comes to boy and says yes, but the boy says that he has moved on, but might be open to a fuck-buddy only partnership.

    • Re:Wait a sec (Score:5, Interesting)

      by mickwd ( 196449 ) on Saturday November 08, 2008 @09:57AM (#25687413)

      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.

      • 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.

      • by Gazzonyx ( 982402 ) <.scott.lovenberg. .at. .gmail.com.> on Saturday November 08, 2008 @01:34PM (#25688685)
        No doubt, for all the things I dislike about Ballmer, I'll call a spade a spade; he played this one well. Now he can come back in a month or two when the stock bottoms out and offer $10/share, and with the ball in his court he can probably make other stipulations on the deal. I'm thinking he got this play straight out of Billg's play book - Bill's been known to be an awesome poker player from what I've heard.
      • 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.

        And if Yahoo! folds he'll be able to buy Zimbra at fire-sale prices. Yahoo! messed with the Exchange bull, and got the horns. I'm actually surprised Yang has the hubris to think he'd be the first one to actually do a beneficial deal with Microsoft.

    • YHOO was trading for around $30 on the open market at the time of that offer. If shareholders wanted to sell out, they could've just sold their shares through any broker on the exchange, and gotten $30. Instead they wanted to hang on and get the extra few bucks of merger arbitrage; and they lost their bet, since the merger didn't go through.

      I don't really get blaming Yahoo's board here--- anyone who wanted to sell out at that price could have, without needing Yahoo's management's permission to do so.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by erikina ( 1112587 )
        No. It was trading around $20 (plus or minus $2). On news of the Microsoft offer, the stock jumped to $30. But that's all speculation, so there wouldn't have been enough force to allow to you to sell a significant portion of the company at that price. Yahoo fucked up, badly.
        • The stock closed over $30 every day for approximately two weeks. During that time, approximately 700 million buy/sell transactions took place. Unless you were the Yahoo founder (who didn't actually want to sell), there was such incredibly high volume (topping 80 million shares changing hands on some individual days) that you could've sold any realistically sized position.

          • Not quite again. The large volume is almost all day-trading and market maker induced fast trades (the majority held for less than a few seconds).

            So yes, you could have dumped a few thousand dollars worth of stock. But if you were talking millions, you'd run into serious problems (especially if you had to file SEC reports (>5% owner or what not).

            Plus, as a share holder you tend to expect the board to do what's in your best interests - not have to sell before they screw you over.
  • Offer (Score:4, Funny)

    by Konster ( 252488 ) on Saturday November 08, 2008 @09:24AM (#25687239)

    Offer $.50 per share, nothing more. Yahoo is a dead brand and a dead service.

    I am *shocked* that Yahoo didn't take MS's first offer and run away, giggling.

    Yahoo has no chance for any kind of meaningful partnerships now that MS and Google are no longer in the picture.

    • Re:Offer (Score:5, Interesting)

      by LDoggg_ ( 659725 ) on Saturday November 08, 2008 @11:12AM (#25687791) Homepage
      Yahoo owns Zimbra which can compete with exchange.

      I'd hate to see microsoft buy yahoo just for that reason.
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by rhsanborn ( 773855 )
      I think Yahoo is a dead brand to you. You'd be amazed by the number of people who have Yahoo as their homepage and use several of Yahoo's built in services such as gaming, weather, etc. You have a list of sites to get all the services you need, and if you find a site that does one or another service better, you are perfectly happy changing it (I'm guessing). But there are a lot of people, as someone else mentioned, that came from the AOL world and like having one portal with the the "interweb" stuff in one
      • Re:Offer (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Ilgaz ( 86384 ) on Saturday November 08, 2008 @12:10PM (#25688177) Homepage

        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.

        • I just wanted to chip in with my 2c. Before Google, Yahoo was definitely the best search engine and free email provider. They still have a lot of cool things, like Yahoo games (good for playing bridge with friends). Also, Yahoo Pipes is amazing, and I wish I used it more.
        • by wdr1 ( 31310 ) *

          I was a developer on My Yahoo! several years ago. I disliked this new version & figured if I was going to have to re-do everthing, I might as well try iGoogle.

          Sadly, I know a lot of others who have done the same.

          -Bill

  • by LaughingCoder ( 914424 ) on Saturday November 08, 2008 @09:26AM (#25687259)
    ... until they can get the pieces of Yahoo that they want for a good price. There is certainly no rush in this climate.
    • didnt they recently approach yahoo just to buy the search division but were turned down (again)

    • Yahoo is no longer interesting because they no longer control a large enough share of either search or search advertising to make a good add for Microsoft's own failing search and search ad business. That's not going to change. This deal is not going to happen ever. Yahoo will fail, and shortly thereafter Microsoft will abandon their failing and money-losing effort saying "it's not important", then file antitrust suits against Google for prevailing by demonstrating excellence. Because excellence is not
  • by Loibisch ( 964797 ) on Saturday November 08, 2008 @09:28AM (#25687275)

    They're like a prostitute with no clients and a huge "won't anyone buy us" sign strapped to their heads...

    Don't mod this funny, I'm dead serious.

  • Wait, what? (Score:4, Funny)

    by 4D6963 ( 933028 ) on Saturday November 08, 2008 @09:37AM (#25687311)
    Someone please walk me through this. A few months ago, MS was trying hard to rape-buy Yahoo who debated itself like a virgin Catholic schoolgirl. Now Yahoo is getting on its knees and MS doesn't want it anymore? What on Earth happened to the both of them in the meantime?
    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      The sea of FUD receded and Yahoo was left naked, rather than clothed.

      In other words, their true value became clear, and they are indeed worth less than they claimed.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      Microsoft was never serious about yahoo. It was a two-fold attack -- demoralize yahoo (and their shareholders) and spook google.

      • by Ilgaz ( 86384 )

        I hoped Yahoo sued MS since things went real chaotic at Yahoo after the MS Offer (!). Even as Yahoo user, you can easily notice it. MS offer was like FreeBSD virus (OS Yahoo runs on), everything slowed down, stopped, ridiculously cancelled, changes without asking users etc. etc.

        For example they were wise to put a very basic RSS reader (in Apple mail.app fashion) to their new Mail and they removed it without giving any valid reasons. That is just the latest event. There is also "Profiles upgrade" which peopl

    • Re:Wait, what? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by hedwards ( 940851 ) on Saturday November 08, 2008 @09:54AM (#25687397)

      MS was willing to pay $33 a share to keep Yahoo from aligning with Google, now that it's become patently obvious that the DoJ isn't going to allow that to happen the strategic value of Yahoo to MS has gone down significantly.

      It was worth it to MS to pay $33 per share in order to still have a chance at that market. Right now, with that out of consideration the value to MS has dropped significantly.

      • Re:Wait, what? (Score:4, Interesting)

        by mabhatter654 ( 561290 ) on Saturday November 08, 2008 @10:08AM (#25687467)

        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.

        • I doubt the DoJ will touch a Yahoo-MS deal. Such a deal wouldn't advance any MS monopoly that exists so long as MS didn't try to leverage this into an OS. And it wouldn't create any new monopolies (think Google's advertising business). Anti-trust isn't necessarily about keeping companies from being big. Microsoft can perfectly well grow new business in different markets to make itself bigger and not get into anti-trust trouble. They care about one company entirely owning or dominating a section of the marke
          • What about email? Yahoo has a 26% market share and Hotmail has a 25% market share.

            If that doesn't raise anti-trust concerns, nothing will.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by trybywrench ( 584843 )
      This is payback for Yang's ego, Balmer is just watching Yang twist in the wind. They'll pick up Yahoo just before bankruptcy ..my guess is around April '09
      • I don't know if it is in Microsoft's interest to wait that long if that's their intent. It looks like Microsoft would want their IP, and their search business, so assets such as hardware and real estate probably don't mean much to Microsoft (the kind of things that get sold off during or right before a bankruptcy). But if Microsoft wants either their portal or advertising business, it's likely in their interest to get it before customers and investors start to bail on fears of Yahoo going under. Customer b
    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      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 intere

    • A picture [infraredrose.com] is really worth a thousand words. In case you haven't heard there has been some dissent about the value of speculative future business, some doubt about the viability of current businesses, the current reliability of certain previously reliable credit rating agencies, the real value of certain assets and the value of the buck.

      On a positive note, soft gold still warms in your hand, continues to have value and cannot declare bankruptcy. If gold fails you, it wouldn't hurt to have a gun [kansascity.com].

  • yahoo's hubris (Score:5, Insightful)

    by trybywrench ( 584843 ) on Saturday November 08, 2008 @09:53AM (#25687389)
    Where's your middle finger now Yang? Do you see the pitchforks and torches of shareholders on the horizon? Hope it was worth it.
    • by toby ( 759 ) *

      Any "fuck-off" to Microsoft is worth it, by definition.

      The sad part is this second Act.

      • Any "fuck-off" to Microsoft is worth it, by definition.

        Right, none of their 'partners' come out better for it. But Yahoo! made the mistake of sitting down in the first place.

  • changes give their customers Yahoo web interface, even though I don't want any advertising, I got one word to say:

    Ya-fu&-hoo!

  • Yahoo should auction off its outstanding shares on eBay. I've got $5 right here.

  • First, Yahoo kills their music store, and everyone with music tracks from them are now left with NOTHING. Now they lose their ad revenue deal w/ Google? If MS truly isn't interested any more (i.e.- their lack-of-interested isn't a bargaining chip), could this be it for Yahoo? What do they have left that's viable?

  • they're going the way of Pets.Com -- eventually anybody who wants a piece of them can get the right one for pennies a pound at the bankruptcy court. why pay more?

  • by nobodyman ( 90587 ) on Saturday November 08, 2008 @10:41AM (#25687607) Homepage

    Yahoo: Hey, wanna buy us?

    Msft: Hey, remember how we tried to buy you and you repeatedly said "no" and caused us much embarrassment?

    Yahoo: Well, yeah.

    Msft: Good then. FUCK OFF.

  • Yahoo (Score:5, Funny)

    by GordonCopestake ( 941689 ) on Saturday November 08, 2008 @10:45AM (#25687637) Journal
    Ya-who?
  • Great Job DOJ! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by thrillseeker ( 518224 ) on Saturday November 08, 2008 @10:59AM (#25687727)
    Here's a company struggling to survive and rather than let capitalism work and let them do a deal with the market leader you prevent it, and watch the company go down the tubes (pun intended). Here's the best part - without Yahoo sucking up advertising dollars, the vast majority of the interest in them will still go to the market leader - but no, you can't allow that to happen and then prosecute any sort of actual abuse - no, you have to prevent the possibility of abuse - you know what's best for everyone after all.

    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: (Score:3, Insightful)

      Great system - government doesn't allow market to work - and then takes money to make it work (for sufficiently poor values of "work").

      This is the 'modern' Republican way.

      Privatize profits and socialize losses. (Corporations only of course.)

      Conservatives need to take this last election and use it as fuel to go read any of John Dean's recent books on the failure of the Republican party by betraying true conservatives.

      (Even Goldwater before he died screamed for the Republicans to stop going down the road that

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        as opposed to the Democratic way, where Pelosi is calling for bailing out totally-blue unionized-companies such as GM? The Republicans' mistake in bailouts (besides the bailout ever being considered acceptable in free society in the first place), was in not targeting the bailout to those corporations that would then reward the Republican party. The Democrats are quite keen to not make that same mistake. Lots of taxpayer (of all political persuasions) will now be made available to those industries and com
        • Pelosi doesn't speak for the Democratic Party, she is just one voice and her personal agendas are usually not in line with the Democratic platform.

          If you want to put a face to the Democratic Party, try Obama, as he now sets the platform, and he is far from liberal and is a good mix of the better ideas from both ends of the political spectrum.

          One note about Obama, he didn't even use the Democratic party to get elected, which in a weird way makes him the first President elect in modern history that isn't infl

      • Privatize profits and socialize losses. (Corporations only of course.)

        Actually this is one of the pillars of fascism. (The real Mussolini version, not the whiney-high-school-brat "I don't like your power" kind.)

    • This is a crap argument. When MSFT tried to buy anything or anyone people screamed bloody murder.

      The government did their job and ensured that the number 1 and 2 don't get together and control the market.

      When you say, "oh we will let capitalism do its work." I call BS! Because if there were true capitalism people would not be able to handle it since many things as they are today would be very very different.

      I always use the hockey game comparison. Rules are there to make the game fair, not tilt it in anybod

      • The government did their job and ensured that the number 1 and 2 don't get together and control the market.

        So now it's the government's proper job to read the economic tea leaves and decide which companies are worthy of survival ...
    • To be fair, I don't think that Yahoo was failing this badly when the actual decision was made. (I may be wrong.) The legal pipeline is slow.

  • Taxes (Score:5, Informative)

    by TubeSteak ( 669689 ) on Saturday November 08, 2008 @11:01AM (#25687733) Journal

    http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/yahoo-plays-catch-up-offshore-tax/story.aspx?guid=%7BB54D432E-20D4-47B3-B7E9-204593E9E00D%7D&dist=msr_2 [marketwatch.com]

    Long Story Short: MS & Google both have offshore tax dodges setup, so they end up paying around 24% tax rates, while Yahoo pays around 40%. Yahoo wants to join the offshore tax dodgers, but the IRS recently decided to crack down on the practice.

    This isn't in the article, but IIRC, Obama has already made it clear that he's going to close such loopholes in the tax code, which will translate to higher taxes on corporations and more revenue for the Treasury Dept. (let's not have the discussion on whether this is a good or bad thing for business and the country)

    • All that will happen if Obama does that is that the companies will move their HQs to another country.

      A lot of companies are moving their HQs from England to Ireland because Gordon Brown did much the same thing.

      • A lot of companies are moving their HQs from England to Ireland because Gordon Brown did much the same thing.

        Our IPO market has already gone to London (though that's because of SarBox, not taxation). Sounds like the Dublin Exchange is one to watch.

    • Bush II has added 5 Trillion to the national debt, doubling it in 6 years. Somebody has to pay for just the interest... you can't lower taxes forever.

  • Yahoo users were packing and leaving if MS deal was done. Obviously, they are the ones who REJECTED MS offers, even tied to Windows interface and have chosen Yahoo. MS could end up buying yahoo.com domain name while massive numbers of users have already moved to another platform/OS neutral provider named Google.

    MS on the other hand does everything to prove they are the very same company who doesn't understand what "Web" is. Opera users are AGAIN reporting Hotmail "new version" major problems. Yes, that is r

  • Apple cannot forever rely on hardware sales alone. They should have their own portal.
  • by istartedi ( 132515 ) on Saturday November 08, 2008 @01:26PM (#25688637) Journal

    Layoff the rest of the people you don't need. Cut unprofitable services. Improve the quality of those services that are profitable. Maintain your R&D division. Come up with some new products.

    In other words, turn yourself into a profitable, but smaller company going forward. Why, you might even consider the possibility of being around 20 years from now as an independant entity.

    I mean, at this stage, why continue thinking "exit strategy" like a 2-year old startup?

    I know, I know. It's an odd idea in hi tech. It seems to work pretty well for the grocer, the tailor, the baker and various other businesses though.

    Oh, and especially, please, pretty please? Get rid of the obtrusive 3rd party ads. I block all that crap. If you just put a tasteful, static GIF on your pages, I wouldn't block your ads. Nevermind that though; I've paid for Yahoo services before. Their music service was good before they stopped maintaining it properly. I've never paid Google for anything. So. Yahoo, why don't you start serving customers like you once did? Why don't you place unobtrusive ads like Google does?

    Whatever you do, please don't change your old-school Finance pages--your GNUPlot based charts would be irreplaceable. Don't get bought. Please.

  • Hahahaha...

    Oh wait, nevermind.

  • Teenagers (Score:5, Funny)

    by Godji ( 957148 ) on Saturday November 08, 2008 @02:44PM (#25689113) Homepage
    You know, all these companies sound like teenagers.

    The rich asshole kid on the block (M) wants to get the cool chick (Y), not because he likes her, but because she wants to go out with the cool kid (G), and M won't have any of that. But then the cool kid realizes Y is just a whore and dumps her. And now even the rich kid doesn't want her anymore. So everyone thinks Y is a cheap slut. In the mean time, the geeks (Sun, IBM...) don't even try going for the whore because they are busy doing their own stuff. As for the classy chick (Apple), she's single because she looks down on everybody.

    The stock market sure is one crazy high school.
  • There's been a lot of talk about how Google manipulated the FCC auction for the 700 Mhz spectrum. For a newcomer, they certainly did consumers a favor in forcing the open access provision that Verizon must now spend years trying to avoid [ipdemocracy.com]. However, with Microsoft's withdrawal from their Yahoo bid, and the recent turn of events there should be NO misconceptions about who is the daddy of IT business manipulation.

    Let's take a look at the whole MicroHoo saga from the start...

    • On February 1st, 2008, Micro

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