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Microsoft Businesses Yahoo! Technology

Ballmer: We're Lucky Microsoft Didn't Buy Yahoo 151

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the if-only-they-had dept.
alphadogg writes (quoting Networkworld): "Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer feels intensely fortunate that his company's $44 billion bid for Yahoo back in 2008 never materialized. 'Sometimes you're lucky,' he said with a smile at Web 2.0 Summit, responding to a question from conference co-chair John Battelle. Careful not to offend his search market partner, Ballmer put his comment in context, saying that any CEO would feel grateful for not making a major acquisition in the months prior to the global financial collapse that started in the second half of 2008."
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Ballmer: We're Lucky Microsoft Didn't Buy Yahoo More

Ballmer: We're Lucky Microsoft Didn't Buy Yahoo

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  • The really winner is Jerry Yang (Score:5, Funny)

    by elrous0 ( 869638 ) * on Wednesday October 19, 2011 @09:17AM (#37761924)

    Sure he turned down an offer of $33 a share from MS, only to have the stock plummet to half that value almost immediately afterwards. But he got to tell MS to go to hell, man!

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Self-marketing-wise, he's now on par with Grigori Perelman.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by elrous0 ( 869638 ) *

        Wouldn't that be illegal? A CEO can't run a public company into the ground and then turn around and buy it out of his own pocket for a song. I'm pretty sure the SEC would put you in jail for that.

        • Would an element of intent be needed to be proven? If my company has a bad string of luck or I'm just incompetent, wouldn't it be OK then to buy back the stock? I know other companies have gone public and then rebought their stock (no, I can't think of them now, and it's not many), and I don't think anyone blinked at it.

      • "Users" is a tricky metric, particularly since it gets defined by the companies themselves. If "users" means unique account logins over the course of a 90 day period, that's a very different thing than if it means "number accounts" or even "number of accounts that have received mail". Keep in mind, that unlike gmail, Yahoo Mail was around back in the per-captcha days, and spam bots could create new accounts with no real barriers to stop them. And, of course, most gmail users all still have Yahoo Mail acc

        • But you have no tangible evidence that Gmail has more active users than Yahoo or Hotmail

          I personally come across more people actually using hotmail rather than gmail for personal emails, at least here in the UK.

  • A better investment for that $44B: Apple (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    AAPL has tripled since around that time. MSFT should have bought some shares.

    • Re:A better investment for that $44B: Apple (Score:4, Informative)

      by TechLA ( 2482532 ) on Wednesday October 19, 2011 @09:31AM (#37762114)
      Microsoft already owns Apple stocks. It owns lots of Facebook stock too, and that has grown even more than Apple within the recent years and become one of the most visited sites on the internet.
      • I'm sure that as a company MS does own other tech stocks but I think the $150M that MS put into Apple back in the late 90s has been paid back.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by Pope ( 17780 )

          They sold those non-voting shares years ago. It was a strategic publicity move, nothing more. Any truly objective business manager would have seen the revenue MS Office for Macintosh brings in and throw anyone who suggested cancelling it out the door.

        • Comment removed based on user account deletion
          • At the time of the MS investment, Apple was sitting on $1.3B in cash. That wasn't total assets; that was cash. Financially Apple didn't need the MS cash infusion to stay afloat. They needed MS for the public assurances that you mentioned.

      • Facebook isn't even public yet (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Let FB do an IPO, and let's see if they can actually monetize there users before we start putting them in the same paragraph, let alone sentence, with the most valuable company on earth, K sparky?

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Karlt1 ( 231423 )

        Microsoft already owns Apple stocks.

        http://justinhartman.com/2007/11/23/microsofts-equity-in-apple/ [justinhartman.com]

        "Currently, Microsoft owns about 0.0046% of Apple through a Private Capital Management fund and Apple owns about 0.39% of itself the same way so whether Microsoft ever held any power in the company is questionable at best."

      • Microsoft already owns Apple stocks. It owns lots of Facebook stock too, and that has grown even more than Apple within the recent years and become one of the most visited sites on the internet.

        Did I miss the FaceBook IPO?

        • Microsoft already owns Apple stocks. It owns lots of Facebook stock too, and that has grown even more than Apple within the recent years and become one of the most visited sites on the internet.

          Did I miss the FaceBook IPO?

          I was going to say the same thing. I checked a bit and found out that there seems to be a remarkable amount of articles about facebook's share value for a company that isn't listed on a stock exchange.

      • Microsoft sold their shares of Apple in 04 as I recall. The EU was looking at antitrust allegations and it did not look good to hold a big share in the same company that you are claiming is your major competitor.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by mikael ( 484 )

          Microsoft bought shares in Apple at the time that Apple wasn't doing so well. It looked good that Microsoft had a competitor at the time they had a monopoly over office E-mail systems and web browsing.

  • This sounds like a good Microsoft strategy. (Score:5, Funny)

    by goffster ( 1104287 ) on Wednesday October 19, 2011 @09:26AM (#37762034)

    Whenever they feel the need to embark on "yet another ill conceived venture" they could
    simply sit on their hands and reap the benefits of not having done it.

    • While I generally agree with you, if they did that ALL the time, we wouldn't have stuff from them like the Xbox (and even though I am not a console gamer, I understand the value and contribution to gaming that Microsoft has given by providing an alternative to Sony's once-monopoly on the high-end console market). A lot of people were skeptical and predicted the XBOX would fail when they first announced it, and could have easily turned into a money-pit.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ackthpt ( 218170 )

        While I generally agree with you, if they did that ALL the time, we wouldn't have stuff from them like the Xbox (and even though I am not a console gamer, I understand the value and contribution to gaming that Microsoft has given by providing an alternative to Sony's once-monopoly on the high-end console market). A lot of people were skeptical and predicted the XBOX would fail when they first announced it, and could have easily turned into a money-pit.

        The XBox still has no place in Microsoft's core business. They somehow did, and still do, believe they were going to use it as a gateway to tie homes into the Microsoft Universe, in some way which would greatly benefit Microsoft. Ultimately they've done what they usually do, buy a lot of other properties which have kept it alive, but I can't stress this point enough Gamers have no loyalty to a platform The next big thing comes along and their old favourite is in the boot sale or being flogged on eBay.

        I

        • Dos/Windows always had more games than competing platforms. It makes sense to create an environment where you can develop for both for console and PC (DirectX, XNA). Also, people tend to use the same software both at home and their workplace (i.e. the managers who call the shots will choose, the bottomfeeders).

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by 517714 ( 762276 )
      Not "sit on their hands" - bumble incompetently and conspicuously. You can't dodge a bullet that is never fired.
  • BWAHAHHAAH THE PLAN WORKED!!!

  • We need a new Yahoo, or do we? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 19, 2011 @09:31AM (#37762116)

    It struck me the other day. I was searching for something on X, and the first five hits were either "Here is a page on X, at the moment it's empty, please submit your user-generated content to us here" or so-called "low-quality content", linkfarm sites that try to stay on the very borderline of legitimacy by having poorly spelled out content with meaningless "comments" to the "articles". It actually happens surprisingly often.

    Not to mention when buying a piece of software, there is a 'discount code' field and you try to search and end up in a mindless wasteland of Kafkaesque hell.

    Then I wished for some kind of ".nocrap.com" site that only allowed pre-checked websites that were guaranteed not to contain crap. And no, "one mans' crap is not another man's gold" - many sites are by any reasonable standard pure crap.

    Then I realised what I wished for was something like Yahoo.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by TechLA ( 2482532 )
      What comes to searching, I've noticed Facebook can do a good job with this, for certain areas anyway. While traveling I've noticed that many restaurants, guesthouses and even hotels tend to have a Facebook page even while they don't have a website and can't find them from Google. That's also probably why Google is scared of Facebook - even if we techies generally don't search there, lots of people do. It makes creation your page easy, and the interface is look is still unified so it's not like MySpace. On t

    • Re:We need a new Yahoo, or do we? (Score:5, Funny)

      by Hatta ( 162192 ) on Wednesday October 19, 2011 @10:03AM (#37762540) Journal

      I have put together a list of websites guaranteed to contain no crap. Here it is:

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by vlm ( 69642 )

      Then I wished for some kind of ".nocrap.com" site that only allowed pre-checked websites that were guaranteed not to contain crap

      Just do a "ask /." question like everyone else..

      "Dear slashdot I'm looking for a ..."

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ackthpt ( 218170 )

        Then I wished for some kind of ".nocrap.com" site that only allowed pre-checked websites that were guaranteed not to contain crap

        Just do a "ask /." question like everyone else..

        "Dear slashdot I'm looking for a ..."

        Dear Slashdot, neighbor has released wild animals - lions and tigers and bears, oh my - how do I protect myself?

        Yeah, I'll get a reply just as the vultures have moved in to pick my bones clean. Not quite timely enough, I'm afraid, though /. does have its uses.

        • Dear Slashdot, neighbor has released wild animals - lions and tigers and bears, oh my - how do I protect myself?

          Well if you're in Ohio, just call out the cops with their assault rifles. Because apparently tranquilizers are too humane^W^Wnot as much fun.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by arcite ( 661011 )
      I get this problem all the time with google as well. It's getting to the point where I just have to skip ahead to page 3 or 4 of the results just to see something bordering on legitimate.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Then I realised what I wished for was something like Yahoo.

      I think what you want might be this: http://blekko.com/ [blekko.com]

    • Yeah, Yahoo did that back when there were like 12 sites on the internet. Not such a workable proposition anymore, I'm afraid.

  • I'm kind of shocked. (Score:3)

    by dreemernj ( 859414 ) on Wednesday October 19, 2011 @09:32AM (#37762136) Homepage Journal
    The summary had the Ballmer quote AND it had the context for the quote. Not bad.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

      That's not context. That's a CEO back-pedalling because he just said something stupid.

      Apparently Michael Dell put his famous "sell off Apple and give the money back to the shareholders" quote "in context" recently as well. He says he's the CEO of Dell and that's all so when someone asked him about Apple he said what he did because he's not a CEO for hire and only wants to focus on Dell and...

      Yeah right.

      • Not only "said". Many felt the entire action of acquiring Yahoo wasn't a good idea and if Ballmer got his way MS would have been poorer and worse off. I think the deal would have been 50:50 cash and stock so MS would have put in $22B.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by ackthpt ( 218170 )

          Not only "said". Many felt the entire action of acquiring Yahoo wasn't a good idea and if Ballmer got his way MS would have been poorer and worse off. I think the deal would have been 50:50 cash and stock so MS would have put in $22B.

          They could have still made something of it. Yahoo has been a mess for years and simply bringing some sense of order to the site wouldn't hurt.

      • In fairness, I don't really think anybody could have predicted Apple's return from the brink of death into an unstoppable juggernaut. It probably exceeded the fantasies of even the most dedicated fanboy.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by hawk ( 1151 )

          I've been kicking myself recently.

          I figured that apple could be sold to liquidate for $20/ share, so I was holding out for a drop to $13 to buy $5k in my Ira.

          D'oh

          That would be worth more than $500k

          And if I'd foolishly put everything into it, I could retire today . . .

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

          Sure. It's not Dell's original statement I'm criticizing, but his need to "put it in context" today.

  • Also lucky since Yahoo's decline has continued (Score:4, Informative)

    by JoshuaZ ( 1134087 ) on Wednesday October 19, 2011 @09:35AM (#37762174) Homepage
    He's also lucky in that it is even more apparent now in 2011 than it was in 2008 that Yahoo is flailing and not doing well at all. On the other hand, maybe if Microsoft had purchased it the new overarching management would have done a better job. Also, part of the failure of Yahoo has been Bing taking some of their former market share. And since Yahoo Search is essentially going to be Bing soon http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8174763.stm [bbc.co.uk] that's essentially done with. Yahoo has very little left that it is used that is that popular. When I was younger a lot of people used Yahoo! Games for things like chess, and I understand that that still has a fair bit of use. But that was actually an acquisition from outside http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahoo!_Games [wikipedia.org] of another website. They've done very little to further develop or improve that since then. Overall, they simply haven't been very proactive with improving their existing services, and of those they have modified it has often been not for the better. In some sense part of the problem is that much of what they have is while not a full walled-garden, it is a garden that isn't easy to move in and out of. And that just doesn't work very well. (Although it does seem like some of the mobile devices are definitely moving back in that direction. Maybe if Yahoo made a more functioning version of their stuff in the form of apps?)

    • Maybe if Yahoo made a more functioning version of their stuff in the form of apps?

      That would be "brick and mortar". I worked for yahoo broadcast when radio stations were struggling and broadcast.com had just been purchased. At a meeting on how to continue broadcasting all of the original broadcast.com shows I suggested we buy up clear channel to avoid having to pay the impending royalty fee bubble. The amount was slightly more but not significant. They literally told me they did not want to invest in an

  • Yahoo? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by MoldySpore ( 1280634 ) on Wednesday October 19, 2011 @09:39AM (#37762238)

    I honestly don't get why anybody would still use Yahoo. The only thing I know people still use it for is fantasy baseball/football/etc. Other than that, there really isn't a reason to stay with them. I have 1 friend who refuses to leave yahoo mail, when infinitely better web based mail solutions exist. Also, Bing and Google have the search market on lockdown. Why would you not use one of those? Any listing from another lesser search engine is going to just get you less complete and/or reliable results.

    Say what you will, but I think Yahoo should just slip into the history books along with AOL and Netscape. Even in 2008, I laughed when I saw that Microsoft was going to pay $44Billion for a slowly dying search engine with mediocre webmail. Now since they didn't buy them, they get to laugh all the way to the bank. $44Billion spent on Yahoo would have most likely spelled trouble for even Microsoft, unless they could have somehow turned Yahoo into a money maker (which judging by Steve Ballmer's comments, they wouldn't have).

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by satuon ( 1822492 )

      People still use Yahoo mostly by inertia. Once the idea of a portal was to try and get as many people as possible to make it their home page, and Yahoo was successful in that way. A lot of people had made it their home page at the time and now they're used to it. And if you're just a casual user, going to Google wouldn't give you any benefits since you're not using the Internet much anyway. So why bother change?

      Yahoo will never attract any new users, but its going to be a slow 40-year demographic process un

    • Re:Yahoo? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Toonol ( 1057698 ) on Wednesday October 19, 2011 @10:26AM (#37762808)
      Yahoo mail isn't any worse than any of the alternative email programs. I know lots of people that still use Yahoo for mail.

      None of them use it as a start page/portal/search engine, though. I'm not sure of any functionality it has other than mail that is particularly valuable... it has some ok financial reporting, I think.

      I miss having a good tiered and human-reviewed directory of web sites, though, like Yahoo was when it started.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by AmazinglySmooth ( 1668735 )
      I use Yahoo as an RSS reader. It works just fine for that. For search I use Google. It works just fine for that. For email I use Gmail. It works just fine for that. I use hotmail as a spam catcher. It works just fine for that. I use Facebook for wasting time. It works just fine for that. Why change when stuff works fine? What's better? Being cool and using the latest tools or being productive using what works for you?

    • I Still use yahoo groups because that's where the vintage trailer mailing list that I'm on is hosted and I'm restoring a 1962 Streamline. But as soon as I'm done, my last use of Yahoo will be over... until the next time

    • yahoo auctions is the defacto auction site in Japan. Flickr is still at the top for photography (real photography, not "look at my funny cat" type shots). Finance.yahoo.com is also one of the better financial aggregator type sites out there.

      • Flickr is a loss leader, though. Yes, it's used by many, many people--and each one of them costs Yahoo money. Somebody may be able to monetize it, but Yahoo hasn't managed it.

    • Re:Yahoo? (Score:4, Informative)

      by Kyusaku Natsume ( 1098 ) on Wednesday October 19, 2011 @11:18AM (#37763534)

      I use it for mail, it is very convenient since it is like a home address, my yahoo mail address has been the same since 1996, maybe earlier. By using it with the mail app in OS X and iOS devices it isn't slower than Google's or Microsoft's offers. Also, in Japan Yahoo auctions is still the most popular site, they beat eBay. Still, asking $44 billlion for that was a stretch. Maybe a third of that was in the realm of reasonable.

      In the previous tread someone posted about the lousy management of Yahoo, an it is true since it was Yahoo who funded Google but they were stupid enough to not try to keep a substantial share of that company. Google could have been Yahoo's equivalent of the Bell Labs and their cash cow.

    • Mail and Finance. They tried to ruin Finance starting with interactive charts. Fortunately the "it's not broken, let's fix it" group in charge of that must have been laid off. The insanity stopped there.

      Also, since they acquired Flickr, that's Yahoo too. They also used to have a subscription music service that I actually liked; but between technical glitches and what appeared to be licensing problems, it failed.

      I've bought services from Yahoo; but I've never bought services from Google. It looks like t

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by k6mfw ( 1182893 )
      I have to admit I have a yahoo email address, used for various mailing lists I don't want on my "real" email. I have a hotmail address but rarely use (keep it for in case someone from the distant past wants to contact me) after MS screwed up hotmail. I don't want a gmail address because there is something creepy with those guys archiving every email (I don't know if yahoo does the same). Yes, people have suggested I do this and that with various options but those suggestions are from computer gurus who spen

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by antdude ( 79039 )

      I know people who use YIM (not its crappy client), e-mails, mailing lists/forums, Flickr, etc.

    • There doesn't seem to be a good alternative to Yahoo groups, aside from building your own forum.

      • Google has Google Groups, which evolved from DejaNews, though it can be used with local Google-hosted groups in addition to Usenet-based groups.

        I'm a member of groups on both Google and Yahoo, and don't really know which is better; as I primary use them via a desktop email client. But I do know the Google Groups interface does have the same conversation view that Gmail does.

    • Yahoo Sports is decent for sports scores on a smartphone as it's coded in mostly basic HTML with little javascript, and thus loads and renders quickly on a phone browser . I've tried sports-scores apps, but they are all ad-ridden, whereas Yahoo has unobtrusive banner ads at worst.

    • I usually use maps.yahoo.com. Partially out of inertia (laziness), but I think for the very rare times when I used to actually print out directions, it laid them out better than Google at the time. I now realize this is mostly moot.

      Also, I like Yahoo's news pages, but unfortunately I have to use the old.news.yahoo.com pages since the new ones are laid out strangely. (Both still do that annoying "use old comments for this new article" thing, and you can't successfully sort oldest->newest AND then get t

  • Launch (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Oswald McWeany ( 2428506 ) on Wednesday October 19, 2011 @09:57AM (#37762464)

    The best thing about Yahoo was Launch.

    Yahoo could have been on a gold-mine if they marketed launch better- it was an excellent radio system and could have been much bigger than Pandora is now.

    Launch's sorting-routines were much better- it varied music played better. Pandora annoys me- I like one bluegrass song- and then rather than playing the occasional bluegrass song mixed in with other genres- I never hear bluegrass for a month- and then all of a sudden it decides to play 10 in a row.

    I think Pandora when deciding what to play- picks one song you liked= and then plays 10 similar songs in a row so you end up with much less variation. Launch was more random what it played.

    Anyhow- I think Launch could have been huge, and possibly saved Yahoo if they marketed it correctly and not neutered it right when people were finally beginning to use it.

  • Ballmer said it all (Score:3)

    by milbournosphere ( 1273186 ) on Wednesday October 19, 2011 @10:14AM (#37762642)
    From 2009:

    "This really is a win-win agreement both for Microsoft and for Yahoo," said Microsoft chief Steve Ballmer. "Consumers will get better products, and it will help the industry as a whole to prosper through our shared vision and shared values."

    Steve Ballmer's just happy he dodged a bullet. If it were up to him he would've gone full steam ahead on this deal. To me, this is just further evidence that he's bumbling about in the CEO position and needs to be replaced.

    • From 2009:

      "This really is a win-win agreement both for Microsoft and for Yahoo," said Microsoft chief Steve Ballmer. "Consumers will get better products, and it will help the industry as a whole to prosper through our shared vision and shared values."

      Steve Ballmer's just happy he dodged a bullet. If it were up to him he would've gone full steam ahead on this deal. To me, this is just further evidence that he's bumbling about in the CEO position and needs to be replaced.

      Microsoft's failed bid for yahoo was the beginning of the....not going anywhere...for the company. Look at their share price from that time. The day that they announced a bid for yahoo, the stock accelerated a decline from which it has only marginally recovered. Right now, MSFT trades at the same levels it has for the past decade. Since 2002, the only time it has traded about $30/share regularly was right before the attempt to buy yahoo. The market knew it was a horrible decision, but Balmer did not.

    • Let him stay as long as he wants... and drive M$ into the ground

    • Microsoft dodged that bullet, and then ran full steam into Skype. Ebay was mocked for buying Skype at nearly 25% of what Microsoft paid for it just a couple of years later. Skype is not worthless, but come on-- Microsoft seriously overpaid. Probably by roughly the same margin as they would have been overpaying for Yahoo, had that deal gone through.

    • And on top of all that, it would probably been renamed "YaBing!"
      Which would have been great just for the amount of jokes that could have come out of that.

  • And then he turned around and... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Bought Skype for almost as much during the middle of the greatest recession since the 1930s.

    • I'm not convinced that Skype was a great buy, but:

      1. Skype was not "almost as much". It was one eighth as much. That's way less.
      2. You realise that a recession is *exactly* when you want to make acquisitions? Ballmer dodged a bullet by not buying just before the recession, because it's so much better to buy during a recession and worse to buy during economic prosperity.

      • My brain fizzled. It's one fifth as much (8.5 billion vs. 44 billion), not one eighth as much. Still: way less!

      • Why not? Ebay paid 3.1 billion for Skype (was initially to be as much as 4.1 billion, based on performance goals which ultimately were not met) and they bought it "just before the recession". It was a disaster for them, by most people's accounting (even though the ridiculous amount Microsoft paid for eBay made the deal ultimately profitable for them even though they only had a 30% stake by the time MS bought it). Some people would argue that buying ebay for 1/3 of what Microsoft paid for it was the "mist

  • What is yahoo? I donno and I've had internet access continuously since 91.

    I think they're a company like EA that buys living smaller companies and vampire kills them? Other than that...

    If yahoo themselves could answer "what is yahoo" they'd at least have a chance of survival.

    And lame answers like "media company" or "internet company" don't count because those mean nothing. I am looking for a real answer. "Ford" = "heavy industry making land vehicles". "Bank of America" = "Predatory bank specializing in

    • They're a web portal which is 90s-speak for 'We put a bunch of incongruent shit on a page, hope you like it'.

  • Definitely a change of viewpoints (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Mabbo ( 1337229 ) on Wednesday October 19, 2011 @10:31AM (#37762896)
    I was an intern at Microsoft in 2009. Ballmer was scheduled to have this big talk for all the interns one afternoon, and at the last moment, cancelled on us. We were all a bit annoyed, but hey, he's the CEO, 'spose that's what happens. He rescheduled for a week later. When he started, he apologized to us for cancelling. He said "Sorry I had to reschedule you guys. It basically came down to this: for the last 10 years, we've been flirting with Yahoo, and they finally agreed to go on a date with us". He was pretty excited about the Yahoo thing, very gung-ho. Side note: That talk left me really impressed with the guy. I didn't stay on with Microsoft, but I still see Ballmer in a very positive light.
    • "but I still see Ballmer in a very positive light."

      I seriously never thought I'd see those words on Slashdot. =)

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by hufter ( 542690 )
      I've been stalking this girl for 10 years, in order to kill her and take her market share. I finally got her on a date. She told me to fuck myself.
  • Sounds like a repeat to me.

    • Sounds like a repeat to me.

      At first it does, but then I read that since Skype is a foreign company, Microsoft could use its euro-dollar cash to buy the company with "pre-tax dollars", at least from a US corporation perspective. In other words, the money used to buy Skype was never taxed, so the effective price could have been at much as 35% lower (the US corporate tax rate.)

      What surprises me is that the board didn't force Ballmer to resign after Yahoo plunged in price. How many people get that close to making a multi-billion dollar m

  • If by "context", you mean "spin".

    Ballmer's spin-fu is ++good!

  • Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said "Sometimes you're lucky."

    No Steve, you are lucky every day of your luxurious life, every damn day.

  • I still use http://finance.yahoo.com/ [yahoo.com] for tracking my stocks, which I think is pretty good and keep coming back to it each time I go and try out other finance/stock market sites. However I admit I haven't really looked around for (free) alternatives in the last year or so. Anyone know of any good alternative (free) stock market/investing/finance sites?

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