Microsoft - Yahoo deal, predicted development!
- By: Qwaider
- On:Tuesday, February 12, 2008 6:12:14 AM
- In:Thoughts
- Viewed: (15660) times
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As Yahoo's board of directors sends an enigmatic 'soft' response that appear to be pimping for a higher price. This was very much as predicted earlier. (Also as was leaked over the weekend). Microsoft immediately responded with "Full and fair". Indicating no interest in currently raising the stakes to acquire Yahoo.
While most analysts in the industry projected that this deal is inevitable, some think hat new talks about merger/acquiring AOL for Yahoo. Or possibly selling the advertising parts to Google. All too late in the game for anything tangible to take place. Yahoo doesn't have the cash to own AOL. Google doesn't have enough cash to counter offer Yahoo, and it's more humiliating for Yahoo to sell the advertising to Google.
In all cases, it's obvious that Yahoo's board is caught between a rock and hard stone! If this deal fails, the Yahoo stock is projected to lose more than 30% of it's value which means the board will be liable for shareholder lawsuits especially after it was projected that the lean years are going to continue well into 2009 before this whole saga erupted!
It's funny to see how investors are reacting. Many are selling while many more are holding, and hoping for a better deal. Most analysts believe that Microsoft might up it's offer few more dollars to sweeten the deal.
I was very excited to hear Jonathan Tower, managing director of Citron Capital confirming what I said few days ago, about Microsoft tactic of over valuing certain investments. Although he views it as "over paying", I on the other hand think this is a suitable tactic to block cheap acquisitions that might threaten Microsoft's strategic advantage. And, makes people feel good about them selves. (Facebook dudes were ecstatic for what they got). Sure the Venture capitalists will suffer, but bigger dudes with a lot of dough (Aka Google) will have to pay dearly to acquire these companies.
I feel sorry for the 1,000 employees that Yahoo is letting go, starting THIS WEEK! They couldn't have thought about a worse time to do this. They should have at least waited until this whole story is done. Few more months wouldn't have killed them, especially when the regular severance pay is going to be about 3 months salary.
Some are saying that it's true that 44bil undervalues Yahoo, especially when you take into consideration their over seas new subsidiaries (Yahoo Japan, Ali-Baba, and Gmarket) these are valued between 13 and 15 Billion dollars on their own. Which would become Microsoft property if this whole deal goes through. And it's most likely going to go through.
So what will the world look like after the merger!?
For me, I will still be using Windows Live messenger, and Google search! Unless I'm searching for Abu Trika's picture which was removed by Google because it said "Sympathise with Gaza"
Image acquired through Live search
But this guy is OK to roam the realms of Google! And Fifa .. with no one saying anything!
Image acquired from Google image search when looking for Abutrika
Yep the all "innocent Google"!
On other news, Yahoo shares went up 69c, while Microsoft went down 35c, Oh, and Microsoft still found some cash lying around one of the executive sofa's to buy cell phone software company Danger, co-founded originally by Andy Rubin, the same dude who made Android (which was later bought by Google and became the Google phone platform!)
So who's Microsoft's competitor? To better answer that question, answer this one: "Who isn't?"
Memories....
So far, it's Live Messenger dominating the world of IM, with Yahoo as a second
I started using yahoo when it was more of a categorised directory than a search engine, but the internet grew so much directories became useless. They can't keep up. I had been using yahoo mail for years until someone send me an invite to gmail beta, and I never looked back. It was faster, gave more space, free smtp/pop (which yahoo started charging for at the time). The biggest factor was yahoos realy annoying flash ads (always animated, often with sound) compared to google's plain text ads which I never even notice or click. Even yahoo's newsgroups which I used to frequent also became useless when they added rediculous bandwidth limits, likewise for geocities as a free webhost.
Yeah Google has this cool and friendly image going, but its a corporation with all that implies. What really makes it cool is all the free services it offers all in one place.
I never liked yahoo's mail. I always used hotmail (since 1995/96) and it's been good to me. I have to admit that they were very crappy with the limits, but now that I have custom domains with 10GB mailboxes and mind you unlimited number of those too :) So I really can't complain especially when it's combined with my messenger and their KILLER live mail tool. You no longer need the extremely vulnerable POP access which is susceptible to spoofing and the rest of the carp. Now with HTML using SSL it's fast, secure, portable and just works
Anyway, this is not about praising or bashing services from any of the companies, it's about people's perception
At least Hotmail pioneered free services. I don't recall anything free before that!
http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/debunking-a-misconception-plus-a-reminder-of-how-search-engines-work/
plus two links on google news and google images,
showing the picture at least now.
http://images.google.com/images?um=1&q=aboutrika+gaza&sa=N&tab=ni
http://news.google.com/news?um=1&hl=en&lr=lang_en&tab=in&q=aboutrika+gaza&btnG=Search+News
way to go al-arabiya.
And you know at least by now, I should be able to know how to do a little search
Besides, my search was days after that issues was reported. I tested it for myself and I was able to repro.
That picture I posted above was originally from the BBC site so there is no way it didn't get enough "buzz"
aboutrika gaza - 25,100
"abu trika" gaza - 3400 results
"abou trika" gaza - 787 results
abutrika gaza - 34 results
The differences in with Live and Yahoo are simply the differences between their crawlers.
Also note that some of the news websites announcing google removed the picture included yahoo. It's a case of gossip gone mad.
Now you can't tell me that Live search is better than google's .. I mean come on. Live search has come a long way but to better google ... is a long shot
Anyway, it's alright ... I really don't have anything to prove here.