> Microsoft taking over Yahoo???

Sandeep

From TOI website:

SAN FRANCISCO: Yahoo Inc confirmed on Friday that it had received an unsolicited bid from Microsoft Corp to acquire the company and that its board of directors would consider the USD 44.6 billion deal.

Yahoo said in a statement that its board would evaluate the proposal "carefully and promptly in the context of Yahoo's strategic plans and pursue the best course of action to maximize long-term value for shareholders."

Earlier, the technology giant Microsoft Corp said it had offered to acquire Internet media company Yahoo Inc for USD 44.6 billion in cash and stock.

Microsoft had offered to buy Yahoo for USD 31 per share, which it said represented a 62 per cent premium above the company's closing stock price on Nasdaq on Thursday.

"We have great respect for Yahoo, and together we can offer an increasingly exciting set of solutions for consumers, publishers and advertisers while becoming better positioned to compete in the online services market," Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer had said in a statement.

Microsoft said it had identified four areas that would generate at least USD 1 billion in annual synergies for the combined entity.

Yahoo shares rose 56 per cent to USD 29.95 in pre-market trading on Friday following the announcement. US stock index futures also jumped after the news was released.

Its google who is pushing MS to get a better search engine! MSN sucks, so take over the better one! What a policy!

KingKrool

Actually that is a smart policy. Most of Google's successful products other than search have also been bought. Much of the web trends and picassa for instance.
Google's big duds (google finance, orkut) have all been grown in house.
It is smart to acquire to grow (look at what the Tata's are doing!), but in this case, I am worried that neither Yahoo nor Microsoft will come out better.

Agnel

Listen, Three is trying to acquire two to get better than one, is it possible?

KingKrool

Easily. They aren't interested in the search market really. They are more interested in the advertising.
You have to realize, google isn't a search company. MS has realized that. Google is an advertisement company. Now, the issue is, using their advertisement revenue, they've been subsidizing their products. How can MS compete with free services? Well, by offering free services. How do they get the money to do that? Well, just take the same route google has. Take over the online ad market. And that is what they are trying to do. But the goal here is actually to be able to get a hold on the online service market. You may think that Google is pushing for cloud computing, but the truth is they are pushing more for thin clients (where most of your services are centrally hosted). MS doesn't want such a centralized system (obviously), so they are trying to keep it more evenly distributed.

Safin

Well the fact is that google became what it has by a good search engine and couple that with adsense/adwords advertising. How and why did the latter pick up. Cos of a lot of things
1) Google was always the best search engine for a very long time. People tied up with them and went there whenever they wanted to search anything.
2) Google built its business atleast from the consumer point of view on ethics. Listening to the people. A lot of others MS, Yahoo were never that sort. Never that proactive anyway. Mostly google built a good trust.
3) Its advertising model is good for advertisers. Google actively makes sure that there is real value passed on the those who put up ads(and not just publishers) and that can't be said about anyone in industry.

MS wants the advertising pie but it will have to deliver addon services that atleast compete with google. But when it does want to do anything of that sort with flagship windows, there are all sorts of lawsuits that are filed against it. Google owns 70% of the search marketing and the same rules should apply to them also.(Btw thats why Balmer has said that for a change google can't make a counter bid on yahoo due to its own medicine

)

Agnel

FE is giving me more news nowadays

I read in ibn this move might leave a few jobless in india

xXx

What a Joke ????

M$ shud understand one thing, that taking over wont solve any problems, instead would increase

Agreed the market share would change, but by minute percentage.

Google Beats M$+Yahoo in search Engine & ads.....the approach Google has taken to lead the market has always be innovative, nobody would have thought of ADsense !!!

Google does it in very simplistic method, whereas M$ tries to do it jazzy & hyped way.
Whereas Yahoo! they should ask M$ to up the ante for them or else forget it, I dont think Yahoo! is doing that bad in the market

KingKrool

Yahoo is doing terrible nowadays in terms of funds - there have been rumours of them laying off people, but what isn't public knowledge is they are going back on offers. A friend of mine had an offer with them (in Sunnyvale, CA). They then withdrew the offer before they sent him an official offer letter. They had switched to a prioritized hiring strategy which means they couldn't afford to hire all the people they needed to. It didn't matter to my friend luckily; he is now joining facebook.
You realize also, that Terry Semmel turned down MS a year ago or so (when he was still CEO I think). However, he just resigned as chairman of yahoo (already had left/been removed from position of CEO), and immediately after that/just before (I dunno the exact timeline) MS made an open offer. Clearly, MS believes that their offer will be better received this time. But I still don't see it happening.
BTW, Adsense was a technology bought by Google. They didn't develop it themselves.
AdSense - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

xXx

@krool...I tootally agree that Adsense was not developed by them, but even though to give it a Good launch pad was possible only with Google.

Yahoo! if they are bleeding, then they should not only considering the M$ offer, but might be into signing the acceptance of BUY OUT !!!

KingKrool

Who else can buy them? Few have the money (no one in fact has that much money), and Google won't have permission