Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has been talking about Yahoo again. According to MarketWatch, Ballmer said the deal would still "make sense economically."
You may recall that Yahoo turned down an offer of $33-a-share from Microsoft shortly before agreeing to the infamous search advertising deal with Google, which is still pending a federal investigation into antitrust issues. Microsoft was not pleased with the way that went down, and there has been a bitterness in the air ever since (ok, that bitterness was probably already there [particularly with Google]). Google even started accusing Microsoft of fanning the flames of controversy to keep the Yahoo-Google deal from happening.
Yahoo's stock has of course been facing some trouble of epic proportions, sliding down below $12 at one point. Ballmer says that Yahoo "probably thinks its still worth as least as much today" as it was when they turned down Microsoft's offer.
"Now there's no chance Microsoft would come back with the old offer," says Joe Wesenhal of Silicon Alley Insider. "And this still isn't an indication that Microsoft is still interested at any price."
Meanwhile, ValleyWag received word that Yahoo intends to cut 3,500 jobs, "chiefly in sales and finance", on December 10th. Yahoo shares did rise 9% in early trading today though.
Update: To go ahead and squash any speculation, Microsoft issued a press release simply saying: “Our position hasn’t changed. Microsoft has no interest in acquiring Yahoo!; there are no discussions between the companies.”
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What Were They Thinking?
They should have taken the offer, especially in view of an already weaking econimy and shaky market at that time. Our gourmet food web site used to get a fair amount of traffic from Yahoo. It's steadily declining in lock step with Yahoo's stock price and perceived value. RIP.
I really wish Microsoft
I really wish Microsoft would consider buying components of yahoo. For instance, microsoft could benefit by buying yahoo geocities. Yahoo is raising the rates of the basic service and dropping the middle-grade service. I for one am planning to leave as there is much better features for the same money in many other places. Microsoft could revive Geocities again, give back a free option, and restore the low and middle price tiers again, and offer better integration with the low and middle tiers with Microsoft Front Page.
Microsoft could also buy flickr.com. Flickr.com already has the best features for the money. Microsoft has the resources to take it to the next level.
Whatever Microsoft does, they need to concentrate on continuing to integrate all their offerings together.
No Value In A Merger
No value at all for MS in this, and Yahoo simply has lost it's way.
Yahoo actually had great results (and market share) at one time, when they used results from their directory.
The links were relevant - the search results were valid, and they made money for directory submissions.
Why they decided they would rather index the other 99.9% of useless web spam is beyond me.
They gave up their core strength, which was being 'different'.
RE: No Value in a merger
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