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AP Microsoft Offers $44.6B for Yahoo Friday February 1, 8:39 am ET By Michael Liedtke, AP Business Writer Microsoft Makes Unexpected $44.6B Offer for Internet Icon Yahoo
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Microsoft Corp. has pounced on slumping Internet icon Yahoo Inc. with an unsolicited takeover offer of $44.6 billion in its boldest bid yet to challenge Google Inc.'s dominance of the lucrative online search and advertising markets. The surprise offer of $31 per share, made late Thursday and announced Friday, comes with Sunnyvale-based Yahoo in a vulnerable position.
In a statement Friday, Yahoo said it will "carefully and promptly" study Microsoft's bid.
With its profits steadily sliding, Yahoo's stock slipped to a four-year low earlier this week and a new management team has been trying to steer a turnaround but sees more turbulence through 2008.
The announcement sent Yahoo's share price up 60 percent in premarket trading, while Google fell 8 percent, weighted down by a fourth-quarter earnings report that missed Wall Street expectations.
In a letter to Yahoo's board of directors, Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer indicated the world's largest software maker is determined to bring the two companies together.
To underscore its resolve, Microsoft is offering a 62 percent premium to Yahoo's closing stock price Thursday.
This post has been edited by skyhawk133: 1 Feb, 2008 - 07:28 AM
[quote name='nykc' date='1 Feb, 2008 - 06:36 AM' post='303289'] to challenge Google Inc.'s dominance of the lucrative online search and advertising markets.
They have to do something. Firefox and other browsers are taking away from them. Vista is a waste of perfectly good code, and Yahoo was atleast 1 step better than MSN but thats not saying much considering. Although Yahoo was always the easiest to get listed and ranked in.
This post has been edited by nykc: 1 Feb, 2008 - 09:42 AM
Everytime Microsoft touches something web-based, they often lag it up beyond belief and render it a when I really have to website. Gmail > Hotmail, primarily because they put so many ads and crap all over the page. What a waste of 44.6 Billion dollars.
QUOTE
When you outsource your programming departments to 12 year olds for a loaf of bread... well you get what you pay for.
I saw that on the news today, I didn't hear much about it, is this just about advertising? or are they buying the entire company?
I believe they are going to try an acquire the entire company, however they will utilize alot of their branding as it is better than many of Microsofts. Emails will probably be affected. MSN Messenger and Yahoo basically already have merged. Microsoft is interested in their search engine more than anything else.
My big problem with hotmail was never really that it had ads, or that it was run by Microsoft, there was just never an easy was to use pop3/imap with it (without paying for "pro" or whatever).
I never liked Yahoo, but I hope they turn this down. Even if they aren't the top dog, more competitors are a good thing.
Microsoft is like the giant blob that goes around absorbing everything.
I think its not a good idea, a lot of yahoos products are way better than Microsoft but yahoo and msn messenger are almost the same thing now. but if they do get yahoo then are they going to take away pop3 access to yahoo mail as well. I didn't like when they did that to hotmail which never really worked for me.
I don't know if this is good, yahoo has a lot of good products and Microsoft would probably just put a lot of ads on the services that I don't see anyways.
This post has been edited by chili5: 2 Feb, 2008 - 02:44 AM
The main reason I used to use Yahoo in the past was for its directories. It facilitated research. Google came along and demolished Yahoo when Yahoo began to surround itself with advertisements and worthless crap, while Google had a simple page with a search box. I see Yahoo as a loser now and I wouldn't want anything to do with it if I were Microsoft. It's like buying the carbon copy of your organization (at least when it comes to the Web).
1 Feb, 2008 - 05:36 AM
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