Microsoft officially declined Yahoo takeover
Microsoft officially pulled its offer for Yahoo on Saturday. In a letter to Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang, Microsoft chief Steve Ballmer confirmed that Microsoft was willing to offer $33 a share, but that Yahoo was holding out for at least $37 a share, or $5 billion more than Microsoft was prepared to spend. In the letter, Ballmer also says he is ruling out a direct offer to shareholders. “This approach would necessarily involve a protracted proxy contest and eventually an exchange offer,” Ballmer said. “Our discussions with you have led us to conclude that, in the interim, you would take steps that would make Yahoo undesirable as an acquisition for Microsoft.”
Ballmer specifically pointed to Yahoo’s plan to outsource its paid search to Google. “We regard with particular concern your apparent planning to respond to a ‘hostile’ bid by pursuing a new arrangement that would involve or lead to the outsourcing to Google of key paid Internet search terms offered by Yahoo today,” Ballmer said. Such a move, Ballmer wrote, would undermine Yahoo’s strategy and long-term viability, hurt its ability to retain engineers, and pose regulatory and legal problems. In the letter to Yang, Ballmer again made the case that Microsoft’s offer was the best option for Yahoo shareholders.
Source: Cnet
Good for Yahoo! One day Micro$oft will DIE.
The headline for this article makes it sound like Yahoo was trying to takeover Microsoft… it should have been worded a bit more like “Microsoft officially WITHDRAWS Yahoo takeover offer”.
Anyway, I think its pretty obvious that Yahoo’s board of directors would have done anything to make Microsoft back down. And they really played it smart there, by starting to set up a closer relationship with Google - which is often seen as a possible Microsoft-killer.
Yahoo’s shareholders may have wanted the takeover to go ahead, but that just shows they’re after some quick cash, and not interested in the long term health of the company. Sure, Microsoft would have left the basics of Yahoo alone for a year or two. But after that, all bets would be off. Within 5 years, I think Microsoft would have gotten rid of Yahoo’s mail, news, search, portals, etc - moving all data to Live, and killing off everything that didn’t fit in there. And of course, that would be a waste - Yahoo is more than just data that can be moved to a different platform, and I doubt Microsoft could ever see it that way.
Microsoft seems to have trouble understanding anything big that isn’t Microsoft.
This is good news,indeed.Microsoft need to stay where he belongs.OS.Unfortunatly,in the few years,MS financial reserves will grow,and they will be buying anything on net marketing,leaded by old words “Buy to make more money”
martin improve your english.
@4 wth are you talking about? Source: Cnet
@4 ronny
before you troll, check your grammar….
Phew!… that was close.
die yahoo
Wow, Microsoft didn’t get something it wanted. That must be a new experience for them.
It bothers me to think that a company like Microsoft can just come in and try to take over a company that clearly doesn’t want to sell to them.
@4 Yeah, Ronny. That should read “Martin - improve your English”
or rather-
Martin, improve your English.
The headline for this article makes it sound like Yahoo was trying to takeover Microsoft… it should have been worded a bit more like “Microsoft officially WITHDRAWS Yahoo takeover offer”.
^^^^thank you!^^^^^^^ i was thinking the same thing.title change please!
Actually, it could also be written, “Martin, improve your English!”, or “Martin! Improve your English.”
Just a thought.
In my limited knowledge of the subject I read this as a plus for the World in general. This however looks like it will hurt Yahoo stock holders but I commend Yahoo for the bravery to sacrifice itself (willingness sell key tech to Google) rather than be overtaken. After all does anyone trust Billy Gates or believe his “charity” work is for the good of mankind!?!? He’s a Bilderberger after all!
Awwww, Poor little Bill, Bulmer and Big Bad Microsoft not getting their way….GOOD! Nice to see that someone still has the balls to stand up to MS.
Yahoo is dead anyway. Would have been a bad investment from the start. Their Yahoo GO technology which is supposedly their next big thing is REALLY pathetic. I give yahoo a couple of years before the company gets bought out and chopped up
This is not a win for Yahoo, when it was first announced that Microsoft was interested in Yahoo, the stock price shot up, now that there is no interest this POS will go down, nobody else wants Yahoo, Microsoft was doing them a favor, $33 per share was a great offer, look for Yahoo to tank tomorrow could go as low as $19, then Microsoft can get them for way cheap, how stupid is Yang, another win for the almighty Microsoft.
You are right. It’s a sad fact that the stock was languishing before MSft made the offer and it’s a sure thing that the stock will open down in price in the morning. I can’t see what will drive the Yahoo stock price back up any time soon since no one else is likely to want to buy it. Google would probably love to buy it but they know that would never make it through the FTC/Justice Dept approval.
The other interesting part of this change in the Msft/Yahoo deal is that it will likely be a good thing for the Microsoft stock price. They were overpaying for Yahoo and it kept the Msft stock price down (though it might have been good in the long run for the stock) and the Microsoft stock should go up this week.
What, yahoo is still around? I dunno anyone who still uses their junk anymore. It would have been a waste of money for MS. They’re going down the drain anyways.
@18: YHOO down 4 points already just an hour into trading sessions today at 23.90. They were around 27-30 range when this whole thing started.
John C Dvorak http://dvorak.org/blog , take a drink, is where I first heard the idea and I think he’s right that Microsoft will watch Yahoo fall to 10 bucks and then buy them for a steal. This deal isn’t a Microsoft lose, folks.
What is a fail for M$ is their straying away from their core business WINDOWS and trying to get into Advertising via Search which is stupid for them. They have tried and failed twice now with Live sucking. This is why we have Vista. They spend all their money and talent chasing Google instead of concentrating on their CORE business. This is great news for Linux though since Ubuntu is a viable desktop OS for PC users who aren’t gamers. The only thing missing from Linux is game support(rather DirectX support). PC Gamers should start supporting companies that use OpenGL primarily like ID, Blizzard, etc. DirectX is whats keeping gaming from the other two popular PC platforms: Mac & Linux.
Good move MS!
All this talk about Martin’s english is making me hungry for china Bistro…i mean China Bistro…whewwww…(did i spell that wrong)?
your a idiiot. the grandmar police