“After a months-long standoff, Microsoft and Yahoo are in active merger talks, a person involved in the discussions said,” The New York Times reports.
“Microsoft, which had threatened to abandon its bid, has increased its offer ‘by several dollars,’ this person said,” The New York Times reports.
“Meanwhile, some Yahoo shareholders say that they have received a flurry of phone calls from both Yahoo and Microsoft, as the two companies are trying to find out what price large shareholders would find acceptable,” The New York Times reports.
Microsoft has privately raised the possibility of upping its offer, currently valued at about $29.30, to as much as $33 a share in recent days. Some shareholders have signaled they are holding out for more than $35. One shareholder said he believed an offer of $34 would probably be sufficient to consummate a deal,” The New York Times reports.
Full article here.
He’s going to eat Yahoo up and all their children too. He likes MEAT!
Ballmer is a yahoo!
Hey! Cool! The picture of Ballmer just changed. Does it change on every page reload?
In my experience with mergers there is no such thing as a ‘merger’.
All mergers become buyouts after a couple of years.
And yes you know which company will be bought out and absorbed into the Redmond monolith.
I feel sorry for Yahoo, their business is profitable and a highly valued brand, they do not need this deal with Microsoft.
If anything, its Microsoft that needs this deal to survive – not Yahoo.
Yeah! It does!
There is no limit to his goofiness.
Best thing that could happen to Apple. How the hell is Microsoft going to beat Google with 2 search engines that nobody uses?
MS is busy shopping for Yahoo… and if the merger really happen, they’ll be even more busy. At the same time Vista’s causing them a looooooots of problems, and it’s not anytime soon they’ll release Windows 7. Also Dell is going down baby, doooown as fast as a downhill skyiing gold medalist!!!
Apple has currently the opportunity to throw a kick to all these fellows!!! The time is now, not tomorrow. The should really launch an affordable complete desktop solution for $799 in order to eat all these people’s pie now. The hit would mean a worldwide market share three times bigger in 3 years.
Just an idea…
Damn! I don’t want my Flickr account owned by Microsoft.
This is GREAT news (for Apple). It will keep MS distracted that much longer trying to sort out their mess (and this time I am NOT talking about Windows).
Peace.
@ boulderfrog
Best laugh I had all day; cheers, mate!
😀
Wonder if Jerry Yang will stay after the merger. When Ballmer finally is fired (as we know he will be eventually), Yang could take over as CEO? I doubt it, but you never know.
Microsoft is looking to give the Big Ballmer fist to Yahoo’s Jerry Yang.
I here Rev3, Apple and Google have been actively interviewing lots of Yahoolagains over the past few weeks
That picture of Ballmer makes me think he’s just begging for a football helmet and a cowbell.
Ballmer is not gonna get fired as long as Gill Bates supports him.
As much as I don’t want to see a Microsoft-owned Yahoo, I do want to see MS waste a lot of money.
no no we need ballmer running MS… Lets him run the M$ ship right into the iceberg
If this goes through, it will mark the beginning of the end for Microsoft…….
What Ballmer needs is a straightjacket and a nice white room with padded walls that also has builtin screens only showing pictures and videos of Macs and MacOS tormenting his mind ’til he selfignites…
The scientists at CERN were recently accused of devising high speed particle experiments which may result in the creation of a mini black hole.
What the frak to they think this merger will do!!!!!
Bring it on.
There goes MSFTs cash-reserves.
AAPL still has theirs, and still growing every quarter, like a piggybank.
In five years, Jobs will have to come to rescue MSFT.
“Also Dell is going down baby, doooown as fast as a downhill skyiing gold medalist!!!”
That’s fine. There’s plenty more where they came from…
1. Ballmer is not a visionary, he has no way to lead their ship, none.
2. Thus, buying up companies is his only game, its all Redmond has because of their crippling overbloat of employees, now in the tune of 66,000+… Very little innovation, massive bureaucracy, no speed to market.
3. Ballmer will continue to screw things up, but so long as he has Windows and Office to lean upon, Redmond has no immediate reason to change direction.
The smart shareholder would demand Ballmer be fired tomorrow, because once MS hits the tipping point of no profits, it’ll snowball fast, and won’t be easily corrected.
Apple is highly likely to continue eating away at Redmond’s feast for the next 2-3 years, but at some point after that time, Apple’s sales will become a true and unavoidable thorn for MS, something they won’t know how to deal with…
May Ballmer stay as MS fearless ego-laden leader forever.
This smells like the Time-Warner and AOL conflagration.
“Also Dell is going down baby, doooown as fast as a downhill skyiing gold medalist!!!”
SB As a woman sprinter..
Steve Jobs used to say: It isn’t necessary in order for Apple to win that Microsoft must lose. I believe we are approaching a point where it is safe to say “It is not necessary in order for Microsoft to lose that Apple must win”. Microsoft is doing a great job losing on its own. Apple has no reason to try and kill it. For the purpose of the value of my Apple stock, I don’t want Apple wading into the razor-thin margin, cheapo, sub- $1000 computers. Or licensing their Mac OS X to other computer makers. I want them to continue their focus on uncompromising design and innovation.
Today, AAPL closed at around $181, with a market capitalisation of about $160 B. This is just above Cisco systems, just below IBM and JP Morgan Chase. At this point, Microsoft is less than double the value of Apple. If the value of Apple’s stock continues to grow at the same pace as it had for the past three or four years, in exactly one year, Apple will be the largest technology company in the world and one of the top ten companies by market capitalisation, among Exxon-Mobile, China Mobile, GE, Royal Dutch Shell, etc.
Let Microsoft try to eat Yahoo. I am going to take up front row seats for that show. It will be an enormous fun to watch.