Microsoft Make unsolicited bid to buy Yahoo!

[Dermot]

Microsoft Made a unsolicited bid to purchase Yahoo! for 44.6 Billlion Dollars.

Microsoft Corporation has announced that it has made a proposal to acquire Yahoo! for approximately USD 44.6 billion.
The offer of USD 31 per share represents a 62 per cent premium over the stocks's January 31 closing price.

"We have great respect for Yahoo!, and together we can offer an increasingly exciting set of solutions for consumers, publishers and advertisers while becoming better positioned to compete in the online services market," said Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.

If the deal was accepted by Yahoo! and approved by regulatory agencies, it would be completed in the second half of calendar year 2008.

Yahoo! made a brief response to the bid and made the following FAQ below..

Yahoo! Inc. - Media Response

[Jeff]

It's sad to see Yahoo flounder like it has. Yahoo has made a number of very smart acquisitions (del.icio.us, Flickr, Upcoming, and many others), but they haven't been able to match Google's ability to monetize search.

Of course, Yahoo has it's own ad network that competes with Google AdWords, but Google dominates that space (and therefore, gets most of the business -- and money). And in search, now people don't even talk about searching for information; they google it!

The Microsoft offer undervalues Yahoo, in my opinion.

[VvWolverinevV]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO !
Microsoft is going to eff up Yahoo! if they get behind the wheel. I really like everything Yahoo!, but this merge would most certainly push me towards Google.

[Yahooligan]

What will really change if Microsoft buys Yahoo? Do you think they will shut down or merge services? I mean, they both have email, im, blogs, etc. Will they keep both running or merge them?

[VvWolverinevV]

They are obviously looking to merge, which will bring Yahoo!'s value way down. Microsoft is good at games, and that's about it. Mark my words: "Microsoft will ruin Yahoo!"

[Philip]

Well, it's always a case of big fish gobbling smaller fish, isn't it? Read David Thielen's excellent little book, The 12 Simple Secrets of Microsoft Management (McGraw-Hill, ISBN 0-07-134248-6). Although the book was written almost ten years ago, a lot of the concepts are still happening.

Chapter 1 is aptly titled, "Total World Domination." To quote Thielen: "If Microsoft sets its sights on another company's business, that company can, at best, hold on to part of its former market. At worse, it will have to close its doors." (page 2) And check out this little nugget on page 11: "We didn't write Excel to make money, we wrote it for the sheer joy of putting the largest computer software company out of business." (Lotus was bigger than Microsoft at the time.) -- Chris Peters, when he was head of Excel development.

Sweeney Todd (of all people!) put it rather bluntly when he said: "These are desperate times, and desperate times call for desperate measures." All the Microsoft top brass must have seen this movie, lol.

[VvWolverinevV]

DENIED! =D

Check the updated FAQ link in Dermot's OP. So happy.