Personally, I don’t care too much for money—because money can’t buy me love. But it may be able to buy you a halt to antipathy. Almost a year ago, rumors were flying—why must rumors always be flying?—rumors were effervescing that Redmond would buy Internet über-portal Yahoo! (hereafter referred to without the annoying exclamation point). It didn’t pan out at the time, but today Microsoft slammed a briefcase full of cash—$44.6 billion—down on the conference table. That’s a heavy briefcase; it almost crushed Jerry Yang to death.
Now, this isn’t a done deal yet: we don’t what Yahoo’s response will be. But it’s worth pointing out that Microsoft’s offer works out to $31 per share, for a stock that’s currently trading at just over $28 (to be fair, it was trading at around $20 at close of market yesterday). With that kind of premium being offered, Yahoo may be hard-pressed to refuse the deal. Said Microsoft CEO Steve “Developers!” Ballmer, “Today, the market is increasingly dominated by one player who is consolidating its dominance through acquisition. Together, Microsoft and Yahoo! can offer a credible alternative for consumers, advertisers, and publishers.”
“One player who is consolidating its dominance through acquisition”? And people wonder why Microsoft doesn’t get the press Apple does. Geez, who writes this stuff for Ballmer?
Oh, wait. Never mind.
To me, this says that Microsoft has realized its losing—if not already lost—the Internet as a battlefield. MSN isn’t an unpopular site, but it lags behind both Yahoo and Google, which represent the top two sites on the web. This acquisition would give Microsoft serious chops on the web, not only giving them Yahoo’s immensely popular portal site, but subsidiaries like—oh noes!—Flickr, too.
I swear, Microsoft, you screw up Flickr and I will end you.
Well.... frick.
I've already been grouchy about Yahoo! and their middling support of OSX. Since my ISP uses Yahoo! to provide many services (like email) it's a pain at times.
Of course the good news is I can actually sync my hotmail contacts with my Mac via Plaxo, right now I can't even do that with Yahoo! so that may improve but there is a reason I don't use my hotmail account much. Horrificly slow interface compared to Yahoo and Google.
Just when you thought 2 companies couldn't get any worse, they decide to get even worse together.
Why can't Apple just buy over Yahoo! and we can all live happily ever after... :D