“Microsoft Corp. has pounced on slumping Internet icon Yahoo Inc. with an unsolicited takeover offer of $44.6 billion in its boldest bid yet to challenge Google Inc.’s dominance of the lucrative online search and advertising markets,” Michael Liedtke reports for The Associated Press.
“The surprise offer of $31 per share, made late Thursday and announced Friday, comes with Sunnyvale-based Yahoo in a vulnerable position,” Liedtke reports.
“With its profits steadily sliding, Yahoo’s stock slipped to a four-year low earlier this week and a new management team has been trying to steer a turnaround sees more turbulence through 2008,” Liedtke reports.
“In a letter to Yahoo’s board of directors, Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer… revealed in the letter that Yahoo had rebuffed a previous overture a year ago, saying it had a turnaround in the works. But he pointedly noted Yahoo has instead deteriorated significantly. ‘A year has gone by, and the competitive situation has not improved,’ Ballmer added,” Liedtke reports.
MacDailyNews Take: But, Microsoft can fix it — they’re doing so well with search on their own. In November 2007, Google Sites share of core searches stood at 58.6%. Yahoo! Sites ranked second with 22.4%, followed distantly by Microsoft Sites with 9.8%, Ask Network (4.6 percent) and Time Warner Network (4.5 percent). Source: comScore.
Liedtke continues, “Ballmer said Microsoft expects Yahoo’s board will review its proposal, but ‘reserves the right to pursue all necessary steps to ensure that Yahoo’s shareholders are provided with the opportunity to realize the value inherent in our proposal.'”
Full article here.
Microsoft’s press release and the text of the letter that Microsoft sent to Yahoo!’s Board of Directors can be seen via InformationWeek here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “John” for the heads up.]
MacDailyNews Note: Apple’s iPhone and iPod touch currently utilize Yahoo’s search (along with Google), push email, weather services, and stocks. All of which, one would imagine, would easily replaced by Google and/or Apple (free .Mac email?) if need be.
I haven’t this much in a morning in a long time- you all are killing me! Thanks!! What a great way to bring on the weekend.
“Tongue wax” “For hairy tongues?”
Microsoft will apply the same mindset to Yahoo that they applied to Vista.
Oh, shyt, Now I have to start thinking about the possibility of shutting down my Yahoo e-mail account. Bastards.
Worst news ever.
Now I have to think about how to replace my Yahoo services.
So now we know what happens when the Death Star mergers with Cobra (or Skelator).
So in effect they’re saying that if they spent $44.6 billion developing their own stuff they wouldn’t be able to increase their stats by the same amount as just buying someone else. The shocking thing is not the value of Yahoo but that Microsoft are so crap that they have no other option but to just buy up the market as opposed to earning it. Of course, in the case of Microsoft it’s not that shocking but still.
Yahoo! becomes OhNoo!
Hey too many people here are always ready to give so much value to money making… COME ON! Don’t play now the shocked about a pur product mentality of our $ society! Most of us wanted a wolrd of “you can get everything when having money” , now here it is… But with or without Yahoo: M$ is doomed! They won’t be getting better anyway… M$ will just kill the best of Yahoo and sink, just as if not there…!
These kind of “surprises” are why Apple needs to be proactive in protecting itself. “Microsoft Makes Surprise Deal to Buy Adobe; Discontinuing Macintosh Support.”
Admittedly, with the direction MS is going, Apple may be able to buy MS in bankrupted pieces in a few more years. But, just in case that doesn’t happen fast enough, Apple needs to identify critical support companies… and buy them.
Meh, this ain’t so bad. M$ will use up tons of cash to buy a failing company, then take 5+ years to come out with improvements. By then the Apple will have even more market share and what ever POS they unveil will just look silly in comparison.
this is probably more to do with removing a competitor than anything else.
There have been rumors of a Google/Apple merger for some time. Could this be Microsoft’s preemptive response?
As much as i like to see Microsoft lose its dominance on the computer industry, i think this is a seriously bad move for MS and don’t want to see it happen. What can MS gain from a buyout that it can’t from a business partnership? Both MS and Yahoo! are already sinking. MS, what you need to do is fire Steve Ballmer and get people who can concept a good long-term strategy with execution. Don’t buy Yahoo! Keep up the decent work on the XBOX.
Ampar,
I didn’t think before I clicked. Lost my lunch.
I feel so sorry for his kids. There ain’t enough money in the world …
@don’t buy Yahoo!, MS
What planet are you from? This is exactly what most of us want to continue happening.
Additionally I hope MS keeps up the “decent work” on the X-box, Maybe they can incur another 1 billion dollar loss in hardware repairs this year too, all at a time when the Wii is kicking its @aa six ways to Sunday.
Let ‘ em have it.
If this exhausts MS’s cash reserves, in the long run this could be a good thing. I doubt MS will be able to succeed where Yahoo! has failed, but I’m willing to gamble loosing Yahoo! if in the long run it also brings down MS.
And yes, I’ll be more than sorry for all the Yahoo! users who no doubt this will be a royal PITA, but the bright side is that past this bump in the road, MS won’t have as much money to be able to bribe pundits and bloggers into submission.
“I feel so sorry for his kids.”
Don’t.
” rel=”nofollow”>Here’s Ballmer’s daughter.
No.
Didn’t
Don’t
Decidedly Not
I always thought it a strange name. A yahoo is a cretin – a.k.a. George ( Dubya) Bush, Rush (Oxycontin) Limbaugh, Ann (it’s a man) Coulter, Sean (The Waterboy) Hannity, Bill (The Bloody) Kristol, etc.
Apple Distionary
yahoo 1 |ˈyäˌhoō; yäˈhoō|
noun informal
a rude, noisy, or violent person.
Yes, I think I had it about right.
I like Yahoo, including its indexing of sites. which I prefer to Google. And I think other things work with them, too. I don’t know what all the negativity about them is here. Others are far worse.
If at first you don’t succeed buy or copy someone else that did….
Your Potential. Your Passion. How much do you want for that?….
Turning quality into crap since 1975….
Who do you want to buy today?….
If you can’t beat ’em, buy ’em…
When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping…
MS. We’ll decide where you want to go today….
New name, “MicroPoo”, while not a totally faithful combination of the corporate names, fits the concept.
Crap…
I’ve been living with a Apple work-a-rounds for years now.. guess I’ll have to tell AT&T;i.e. SBC (sbcglobal.net) that I’ve had it with sbc/att yahoo and want a way out!
Does any one know how to keep one’s AT&T;cable service with out using AT&T;’S SBC Yahoo offering?
$45b is 4 years of profits (based on 2007), that’s insane.
Ampar,
Ballmer’s daughter is kinda cute, even if she does have an alien parasite living inside her. But most guys could overlook that.
Gawd, I couldn’t stop laughing at that dog! The look on it’s face is hilarious.
Thanks, buddy.
This is not uncommon:
1st Place has 50% Market Share
2nd Place has 50% of 1st Place’s share
3rd Place has 50% of 2nd Place’s share
Misc fills out the rest…
What’s just as uncommon…
2nd + 3rd Place joining forces to take on 1st Place