“Global giants including Apple and Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp are believed to be considering rival bids for the internet company Yahoo, which has received a $44.6bn (£22.6bn) offer from Microsoft,” Nathalie Thomas reports for The Scotsman.
“The conglomerate InterActiveCorp was another company named as a potential bidder for Yahoo, which is said to be unwilling to give in to Microsoft without a fight,” Thomas reports.
“After Microsoft’s chief executive Steve Ballmer made the offer in a letter on Thursday, it emerged that Yahoo had rejected a similar takeover attempt by Ballmer’s organisation a year before,” Thomas reports.
“Yahoo chief executive and co-founder Jerry Yang is understood not to be Microsoft’s greatest fan, and would be prepared to line up another ‘white knight’ rather than concede to Ballmer,” Thomas reports.
“It is believed he would be particularly open to a rescue bid from Steve Jobs’ Apple Corp, having openly expressed his admiration for the firm in the past,” Thomas reports. “Yang last year invited Jobs to Yahoo’s headquarters in Sunnyvale to give a motivational talk to staff.”
Thomas reports, “Recent figures show that Google dominates 66% of the global web search market. Yahoo and Microsoft are leagues behind with just 13% and 4% of the market respectively.”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Judge Bork” for the heads up.]
“Also, who is Apple Corp.?”
Apple Corp. is the Beatles record company.
Let all that Seattle cash flow into the California economy. Whatever…
Apple revenue model don’t rely on advertising. Otherwise you would have seen ads everywhere on iTunes and .Mac.
Their goal today is to build a free from ads & ubiquitous ecosystem (software + hardware). They want to be everywhere in the life of everyone who’s willing to pay for the high standard they provide. They don’t consider the rest of the crowd. Plain and simple.
They are extremely focussed in achieving this goal, and Yahoo fits nowhere in it.
$44B for a company that had earnings of $660M? Where did these guys go to business school? Yahoo’s got a healthy balance sheet, but it sure doesn’t look like it’s worth $44B. Apple or Microsoft could spend a fraction of that to get a big toehold into Yahoo’s markets. First and foremost, Yahoo is an advertising company; not exactly Apple’s core business. Didn’t anyone at Microsoft look at the AOL/Time Warner deal?
why not pour their cash into dominating the fields apple is already doing well in? i understand the need to make investors happy, but apple’s success is ultimately about pleasing their loyal consumers who i doubt care about a better yahoo.
could work. Apple buy the Yahoo brand, and outsource ad infrastructure to Google…that would be a massive kick in the cojones.
remember Google once powered Yahoo Search…
News corp probably a better fit though.
A dumber idea than buying Adobe. As a stockholder I would oppose either move. Apple should, and I’m confident will, “stick to its knitting”. Its focus is computers, consumer electronics, and digital distribution. It’s not in the search business, and it’s definitely not in the advertising business. Check Apple’s financials, look at the ROI figures. There’s simply no way either Adobe or Yahoo could provide the kind of cash flow Apple would expect to justify such investments.
Yahoo resisted floodgates of ads on its portal for the longest time, going against the shareholders’ demands. It conceded on the my.yahoo, but yahoo.com offered minimal ad presence.
Apple will and does place ads on the iTunes, primarily Apple’s own products but tastefully (carefully) subtle. Apple may and does advertise 3rd parties as promotional offerings. Again, thinly veiled.
With yahoo.com, I therefore, don’t see it a big stretch for Apple. They can just run all their web ads on various yahoo sites without alienating a lot of folks who are already exposed/accustomed to banner ads.
But what is serious for apple is that it lacks and desperately needs a social network for the users (or the screaming teenage girls, MDN Magic word: she) who’ll sustain it’s iTunes/iPod echosystem. Cut B$44 in 1/3 and forget a partnership with yahoo will give Apple a long existing shadow into the future where google may one day may not be so intimidating.
Don’t think so, Apple doesn’t waste money on tossers, and Apple can’t afford Goggle.
Microsoft buying Yahoo would be good for Apple as it would keep Baldmer busy, with a new toy for awhile. But, a truck load of new office furniture would do the same thing. A few dozen strippers/hookers and case booze and he might not leave his office for a week or two. Open a strip club next to MS HQ in Redmond and he might not show up at his office for months at a time.
Yeah that’s true, but I think we want Balmer showing up at the office, since he’s completely incompetent. If he’s out of the office, the rest of the folks at MS might actually do something right…
I have seen different numbers for Google and Yahoo than the percents here. From what source are these?
Apple to buy out Yahoo? that would go against their revenue model and be a way overpriced purchase. If they wanted to venture into the search field they’d be better off buying out a small outfit like ask.com and tying in the search engine with all of their products such as the iphone. And besides they’re in bed with Google and they wouldn’t want to ruin that.
And enough talk about apple buying Adobe, it’s not going to happen. Apple would be better off developing their own graphics software or even buying out a dying business like corel and re-branding their products.
Yahoo should sell to M$ while they can. Take the money and run!!!
I must be experiencing a funny mood today but it would be fun every time MS buys a software company to start a rumour of Apple buying a hardware company. Maybe Apple should buy out IBM or Dell, no wait, not Dell, they should just close up their phone support network and give the money back to the stockholders.
This just doesn’t make sense. Apple doesn’t have $44B in the bank to blow like MS. The last I heard their Resources were only in the 20’s. I doubt they doubled their piles of cash last Quarter. And even if they did, they would invest it in new hardware, not some washed out Website from the 90’s.
Magic Word: “did” as in Yahoo! did have a chance. in 1997.
stupid if APPLE buys YAHOO
Amazed you bother reporting this crazy piece of writing which is a complete fabrication.
She heard someone say Apple should buy it down in a boozer in Edinburgh…
Stuff and nonsense.
I don’t think Apple has a spare 50billion lying around. I heard Google was considering a partnership with Yahoo. Apple + Google + Yahoo, that would be way sweet. No one has to buy anything, just team up.
But think about the obscene amount of money bing thrown around these days, 44-50 BILLION not million, BILLION for a frigin website I could have pumped out of Dreamweaver. Has anyone actually seen a Google ad? I know they’re there, but I subconciously don’t see them.
This is a totally rubbish rumor based upon the writer’s recollection that Steve Jobs spoke to Yahoo! employees last year. It’s NONSENSE. In the UK, they write shockingly rubbish stories.
I heard Teac was gonna buy AltaVista.
While this is totally rubbish, just because Apple doesn’t have $45B in cash laying around, NEITHER does Google or Microsloth. Microsoft is offering half cash, half stock. I think when Acer bought Gateway, they offered all stock. When Disney bought Pixar, they offered all stock, that’s why Steve’s Pixar shares turned him into Disney’s largest shareholder. It was an all-stock offer. So, you don’t need cash to buy another company. Apple could do it, but it’s NOT going to happen. It’s way too stupid. It’s almost as dumb as buying Palm or Motorola.
“How ’bout Adobe AND Sony, both talked about for purchase on MDN previously?”
I think that was before Apple lost a1/3rd of its value.
“44-50 BILLION not million, BILLION for a frigin website I could have pumped out of Dreamweaver”
You should do that then and sell it to Microsoft for $ 45 billion.
Don’t buy the whole damn company. Just give them enough cash to help them give MS the finger. Then “encourage” them to start using Xserves and “suggest” they make all their products more Mac friendly. And .Mac could sure use more features, right?
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MSFT could just be doing this to waste cash at its rivals