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View Full Version : MS interested in buying Yahoo...?



Sporkman
January 10th, 2008, 04:06 PM
Link (http://www.marketwatch.com/News/Story/Story.aspx?guid=%7b71577430-1788-471F-B450-446497D3DB65%7d&siteid=yhoo&dist=yhoo)



Yahoo shares up in pre-market on report Microsoft interested

By Steve Goldstein
Last update: 9:29 a.m. EST Jan. 10, 2008

LONDON (MarketWatch) -- Shares of Yahoo rose 2.9% in pre-market trade, following a report in The New York Post that sources close to Microsoft say the company is still debating if it should make last year's informal offer to buy the search firm official by going public with its bid. The Post last year reported on Microsoft-Yahoo talks, though other outlets reported the discussions were more on a partnership and not a takeover.

JacobRogers
January 10th, 2008, 05:27 PM
I'm interested in buying yahoo too.

jrusso2
January 10th, 2008, 05:59 PM
Micorosft has been trying to buy Yahoo for years. They have not been able to get them to agree to their price.

edm1
January 10th, 2008, 06:08 PM
Is this what they meant by pitting themselves against google (http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/newstex/AFX-0013-22126397.htm)?

markyb86
January 10th, 2008, 08:26 PM
hah its says they compete with apple...

If they lost to apple, they would still win! they own like 80 percent of apple, and steve jobs is like 80% bill gates

~LoKe
January 10th, 2008, 08:30 PM
Yahoo would sell to Google before they sold to Microsoft.

Sporkman
January 10th, 2008, 09:01 PM
Yahoo would sell to Google before they sold to Microsoft.

Antitrust issues. A combined Yahoo-Google would own about 95% of the search market.

Tundro Walker
January 12th, 2008, 11:08 AM
I thought MS already owned Yahoo. Yahoo always did pro-MS stuff, which always made me think this.

angryfirelord
February 1st, 2008, 01:29 PM
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aLsamJL6qUQY&refer=news

Feb. 1 (Bloomberg) -- Microsoft Corp., the world's biggest software maker, made an unsolicited offer to buy Yahoo! Inc. for about $44.6 billion, or $31 a share.

The offer is 62 percent more than Yahoo's closing stock price yesterday, according to a Microsoft statement distributed by PR Newswire. Yahoo shareholders can choose cash or stock, Microsoft said.

Microsoft and Yahoo explored ways to work together in late 2006 and early 2007, according to a letter Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer sent to the Yahoo board. Yahoo rejected the idea of being taken over by Microsoft a year ago, the letter said.

``While a commercial partnership may have made sense at one time, Microsoft believes that the only alternative now is the combination of Microsoft and Yahoo! that we are proposing,'' the letter said. ``This proposal represents a compelling value realization event for your shareholders.''
We are Microsoft. Surrender your keyboards. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Resistance is futile.

Polygon
February 1st, 2008, 02:30 PM
that would be pretty huge if they bought yahoo. Im guessing they want their search engine / website portal....isnt yahoo either the first or the second most visited site...ever? (either above or one below google?)

Dragonbite
February 1st, 2008, 02:30 PM
Looks like Microsoft is going beyond "interest" and giving it a try!
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aLsamJL6qUQY&refer=news

This ought to shake things up some! :popcorn:

Dragonbite
February 1st, 2008, 02:32 PM
I heard that on the radio this morning! That's going to be interesting to watch and even more interesting if it actually goes through!!

Unfortunately that probably means my Yahoo! account will turn into a .NET Passport or something!

angryfirelord
February 1st, 2008, 02:43 PM
I heard that on the radio this morning! That's going to be interesting to watch and even more interesting if it actually goes through!!

Unfortunately that probably means my Yahoo! account will turn into a .NET Passport or something!
Or worse, they redesign it so it uses Silverlight. :shock:

barbedsaber
February 1st, 2008, 02:50 PM
http://www.userfriendly.org/cartoons/archives/05oct/uf008409.gif

altariel
February 1st, 2008, 03:02 PM
a SAD loss for the FreeBSD-community :(
like Hotmail some years ago (which also ran pretty much under FreeBSD), M$ will just try to eliminate all other systems than M$-***** :( :( :(

BDNiner
February 1st, 2008, 03:13 PM
I for one will not be using "yahoo! live passport" or whatever it is they would want to call it. Oh yeah and they will try and through a microsoft in there some where. like "Yahoo Live by Microsoft" or something.

AnonCat
February 1st, 2008, 03:16 PM
Something gives me the creeps about a huge company that has so much power over the world's OSes also trying to practically own the internet.

Pragmatik
February 1st, 2008, 05:09 PM
Dang it, that means Bill will own Flickr, too! :mad:

Sporkman
February 1st, 2008, 05:14 PM
...And likewise, the DOJ is "interested" in the deal as well:

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080201/microsoft_yahoo_antitrust.html?.v=3


DOJ 'Interested' in Microsoft-Yahoo Deal

Friday February 1, 11:10 am ET
By Dan Caterinicchia, AP Business Writer

Justice Dept. 'Interested' in Antitrust Issues Raised by Microsoft's Possible Buyout of Yahoo

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Justice Department on Friday said it is "interested" in reviewing antitrust issues associated with Microsoft Corp.'s nearly $45 billion unsolicited bid for Yahoo Inc.

If the deal goes through, analysts expect scrutiny from Congress, Justice and other enforcement agencies, but they say any concerns about search engine or online advertising market power may not be significant enough to stop the transaction.

"The antitrust division would be interested in looking at the competitive effects of the transaction," said Justice Department spokeswoman Gina Talamona.

A spokesman from the Federal Trade Commission, which in December approved Google Inc.'s $3.1 billion purchase of online advertising company DoubleClick Inc., declined to comment. That deal still faces antitrust scrutiny in Europe.

Keith Hylton, a professor of antitrust law at Boston University, said Google's success in online search and advertising means a combined Microsoft-Yahoo would have significant competition.

"The fact that Google dominates this business will be a big factor in their (Microsoft's) favor in trying to get this approved by the regulators," Hylton said.

A federal judge this week extended by 18 months court oversight of Microsoft's market power, which began in 2002 after a landmark antitrust settlement. Hylton said Justice has been relatively lenient with Microsoft, compared to state attorneys general. It was a group of states that pushed for the extension of court oversight of the software giant, while Justice officials said the 2002 antitrust settlement had largely served its purpose and should expire.

"If this deal goes through, there will be a lot of very close scrutiny ... there appears to be lots of overlap," said Harry First, a professor at New York University's School of Law. "It's complicated and very big, and a lot of enforcement agencies will be interested."

Sen. Herb Kohl, D-Wis., chairman of the Senate antitrust subcommittee, said the same issues that prompted lawmakers to review the Google-DoubleClick deal exist in a potential Microsoft-Yahoo combination, including examining how it affects consumers, advertisers and businesses "who increasingly use the Internet for their news, commerce and entertainment."

If Yahoo accepts Microsoft's offer, the subcommittee expects to hold hearings to "explore the competitive and privacy implications of the deal," Kohl said.

Shares of Yahoo added $8.67, or 45 percent, to $27.85 in morning trading, while Microsoft fell $1.88, or 5.8 percent, to $30.72.

quinnten83
February 1st, 2008, 05:15 PM
Dang it, that means Bill will own Flickr, too! :mad:

right, guess my pictures are going now to googles picassa..

bttay
February 1st, 2008, 05:37 PM
sorta bad idea. is micro$oft gonna take over the 'net?!?!?
hopefully not.

:lolflag::lolflag::lolflag::lolflag:

wolfen69
February 1st, 2008, 06:24 PM
if this happens, i will no longer use my yahoo mail accounts. i hope bill gates dies a horrible death.

kjb34
February 1st, 2008, 06:25 PM
I really hope it doesn't go through. If it doesn't I'll have to get rid of my yahoo account.

angryfirelord
February 1st, 2008, 10:16 PM
Hmm,
http://bigcharts.marketwatch.com/quickchart/quickchart.asp?symb=MSFT&sid=0&o_symb=MSFT&freq=1&time=8&x=0&y=0
Down 6.52% today. Somebody knows something. Could go up or down Monday morning.

rustybronco
February 1st, 2008, 10:26 PM
if this happens, i will no longer use my yahoo mail accounts. i hope bill gates dies a horrible death.


I really hope it doesn't go through. If it doesn't I'll have to get rid of my yahoo account.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=4248528#post4248528

M-soft... must own all the toys in the sand box.
how to innovate, just buy em. live search must be doing well.

popch
February 1st, 2008, 10:35 PM
According to what I read here, an important portion of Microsoft's personnel are Yahoos, anyway.

(sorry but not too much. I just could not resist)

RebounD11
February 1st, 2008, 10:54 PM
i hope bill gates dies a horrible death.

There's sth wrong with you... why the hell would you want a man to die? He wasn't even that bad, I think he was a genius. Would you like it if someone said the same thing about you?

A rap band from my country (called Parazitii) said something wise in a song (called Categoria Grea) to use when someone feels this way about you, and I bet Bill Gates would think so too if he knew:

Iti doresc ce imi doresti tu mie,
Si sa ti-i se-ntample tie.

Translation (the feeling gets lost in the translation though :():
I wish that what you wish for me,
Happens to you.

If someone can translate better I invite him to do so.
Sorry if I was off-topic, but I found that more than childish.

bufsabre666
February 1st, 2008, 11:00 PM
if this happens, i will no longer use my yahoo mail accounts. i hope bill gates dies a horrible death.

dude, that is so wrong, even hear of do unto others? theres no reason to wish death upon anyone

bruce89
February 1st, 2008, 11:04 PM
if this happens, i will no longer use my yahoo mail accounts. i hope bill gates dies a horrible death.

That's pretty pathetic. There's a law against wishing people dead, it's called incitement to murder (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/02/08/nhamz08.xml)

I think it's great. MS has already killed itself partially with Vista, them buying Yahoo! would seal the deal.

See http://jamiemcc.livejournal.com/11190.html for an interesting opinion. Essentially it says that Flickr is the only good thing about Yahoo! and that MS will have to convert their open base to a MS server base, wasting time and being worse.

Xbehave
February 1st, 2008, 11:13 PM
i dont see how microsoft becoming number 2 in the search engine arena is really an issue, maybe poor IE users will almost get as good searches for bad urls as firefox users do!

stop using yahoo start using gmail... because that will solve all your problems!?
its always best to spread your systems anyway
i have 2 msn acounts, 1 inactive hotmail, and 1 yahoo which i rarely use to message due to spam, but send all spam mail to it. I intend to start using gtalk as soon as i know people that use that.

yahoo messenger was about 5 years ahead of msn, five years ago, but this is what they deserve for stagnating and letting spam bots overrun thier network!

Mateo
February 1st, 2008, 11:16 PM
i really like yahoo. i wonder what types of servers yahoo uses. do they use lamp?

bruce89
February 1st, 2008, 11:18 PM
i really like yahoo. i wonder what types of servers yahoo uses. do they use lamp?

I hear they use FAMP (FreeBSD). I wonder how long it'll be 'til it's IIS on Vista.

Mateo
February 1st, 2008, 11:22 PM
^^^ That would be a major amount of work, I would think. Converting the MySQL databases to MS-SQL alone would be a quite a task. MS-SQL has a lot of differences.

RebounD11
February 1st, 2008, 11:25 PM
stop using yahoo start using gmail... because that will solve all your problems!?


It solved mine, I have the Yahoo account because most of my mates at the University and my study group are on yahoo (and yahoo groups). It amazes me how slow Yahoo has become lately compared to Google. It was better when I started using it.

Mateo
February 1st, 2008, 11:31 PM
Also, I see a bit of a redundancy problem here. I mean, Yahoo Mail is the biggest mail service in the world. Is Microsoft just going to eliminate it? Are they going to eliminate Hotmail instead? Ditto for all of the other internet products that Microsoft has tried to create on their own. There is a lot of overlap here. They can't get rid of all the stuff they already have.

Look at what happened when Google acquired YouTube. They didn't do away with Google Video, and that was a brand new product used by very few people.

smbtol
February 2nd, 2008, 01:24 AM
I moved my main accounts from yahoo to gmail two years ago when gmail allowed me to connect to google talk from IE/firefox. Most of my friends and all my family is on google now. I hope that google talk will release some versions with audio chat for linux and maybe some video chat. Otherwise skype is for me.
Microsoft will end up in a lot of troubles integrating Yahoo. Of course this will help Google.
And I don't see the point hating Bill Gates. He donated a lot of money for charity, billions of dollars. Microsoft is evil as a corporation only.
Go Google!!!!

motoperpetuo
February 2nd, 2008, 02:42 AM
I heard that on the radio this morning! That's going to be interesting to watch and even more interesting if it actually goes through!!

Unfortunately that probably means my Yahoo! account will turn into a .NET Passport or something!

yeah...the first thing i thought when i saw this on the news this morning was that it'll be a drag to have to change all my email accounts. yahoo's been my homepage for years, but no longer if it gets microsoftened.

EmilyRose
February 2nd, 2008, 03:35 AM
It sucks, I really hope it doesn't go through. Course' theonly things I use yahoo for at all are on freecycle and other yahoo! groups, so tisn't like much would change, but still..

new2*buntu
February 2nd, 2008, 03:47 AM
If that happens, I'll switch to Gmail...

big dizzle
February 2nd, 2008, 05:53 AM
M$ is finally starting to realize that its profit model won't work forever. Don't be afraid of this. Bill Gates is just having premonitions about the certain death of his majority market share

I think the real funny thing is that people at M$ probably work 70 hours a week trying to make a dollar anyway they can, while people at google take fridays to work on charity projects.

Can anyone say KARMA?

Brunellus
February 2nd, 2008, 05:56 AM
It sucks, I really hope it doesn't go through. Course' theonly things I use yahoo for at all are on freecycle and other yahoo! groups, so tisn't like much would change, but still..
The genius of the offer is that it doesn't need to "go through." Microsoft has simply made it known to Yahoo shareholders everywhere that they will buy Yahoo shares at a 60% premium over their 31 Jan 2008 closing prices.

Assuming the relevant anti-monopoly regulators have nothing to say on the matter, it's up to each individual shareholder to decide whether his "principles" (whatever those are or whatever they mean) are valuable enough to induce him to refuse an offer to pay a 60% premium on a security whose value has been on a downward trend.

TeaSwigger
February 2nd, 2008, 09:12 AM
A few thoughts.

I guess their mega-giant MSN isn't enough?

Gee, that's not about as obvious as greed can get.

Imagine what MicroSoft could glean from the past searches of everyone who ever used Yahoo.

Sure, that sounds fine. If this was 1995.

Yahoo may not want to sell; I can't shake the feeling that they can't say so and can't say no.

This shouldn't be permitted in a free market (interesting how that seemingly contradictory phrase could be true, isn't it?).


We are Microsoft. Surrender your keyboards. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Resistance is futile.

No kidding.

TeaSwigger
February 2nd, 2008, 09:29 AM
Microsoft will end up in a lot of troubles integrating Yahoo. Of course this will help Google.
And I don't see the point hating Bill Gates. He donated a lot of money for charity, billions of dollars. Microsoft is evil as a corporation only.
Go Google!!!!

The corporation consists entirely of a lot of individual people. If they're ok as individuals, the corportation can not be anything but ok. If the corporation is wrong, then... See my meaning? Therein lay many of the problems of mankind throughout civilisation.


Also, I see a bit of a redundancy problem here. I mean, Yahoo Mail is the biggest mail service in the world. Is Microsoft just going to eliminate it? Are they going to eliminate Hotmail instead? Ditto for all of the other internet products that Microsoft has tried to create on their own. There is a lot of overlap here. They can't get rid of all the stuff they already have.

Look at what happened when Google acquired YouTube. They didn't do away with Google Video, and that was a brand new product used by very few people.

Same difference I suppose; bottom line being that each have users who will all then be using MicroSoft product.


yeah...the first thing i thought when i saw this on the news this morning was that it'll be a drag to have to change all my email accounts. yahoo's been my homepage for years, but no longer if it gets microsoftened.

lol! Microsoftened...


It sucks, I really hope it doesn't go through. Course' theonly things I use yahoo for at all are on freecycle and other yahoo! groups, so tisn't like much would change, but still..

It may not matter in any obvious way, but it's be a pretty big deal that, if realized, it may well have many indirect effects to almost everybody doing almost anything online.


^^^ That would be a major amount of work, I would think. Converting the MySQL databases to MS-SQL alone would be a quite a task. MS-SQL has a lot of differences.

Such things are probably not a blip on their corporate radars.

lancest
February 2nd, 2008, 09:36 AM
Both Yahoo and MS suffer from past mistakes:



Yahoo ignored search business- Google grabbed it.
Microsoft clinging to proprietary software model
-Google has online Docs and is pro Linux.



Because of their weaknesses all they can do is merge hoping they can somehow stop Google.
As I heard someone say- the shoe is on the other foot Microsoft. How does it feel to be beaten down on the internet with no way to catch up? MS your money can't save you now since you aren't innovating anyway. You are flushing all that cash down the toilet just to merge with Yahoo instead of helping poor children get food, education or OLPC's. You deserve to be left out of the next internet wave for hindering innovation with your riches too.

Mateo
February 2nd, 2008, 03:09 PM
Google should announce Goobuntu as a counter strike.