Yahoo Turns Down Microsoft

  • Posted By: Bob Buskirk on February 13th, 2008
  • 2 Comments... What do you have to say?

Well this was not the best news to me. I had really hoped if Microsoft and Yahoo joined forces a lot of good would come of it, especially in the online advertising market. As I said Yahoo’s Publisher Network and Microsoft’s AdCenter don’t even compare to Google Adsense, but if they were combined, there could at least have been some competition there. On Monday Yahoo’s Board of directors said that the 44.6 billion dollar offer substantially undervalues Yahoo. But does it really? As I said their Q4 earning has been down 23 percent and their stock has been going down since November.

By the end of the day Monday Microsoft had sent a response to Yahoo saying that a Microsoft-Yahoo combination would create a more effective company that would provide greater value and service to its customers. A lot of stories are coming up that Yahoo does not want to sell it all, and never did. Yahoo’s CEO Jerry Yang is said to have reassigned hundreds of employees 4 month ago, to make Yahoo more relevant. Some of the plans are to rethink Yahoo’s homepage, consolidate Yahoo’s social networks, open up Yahoo to third parties (like Facebook), and revamping Yahoo’s network infrastructure. It seems the Microsoft bid came at the wrong time as these things had not been achieved yet. But even if they are achieved well they make Yahoo worth the $40 a share (nearly $60 billion) they want?

It seems this week will be a crazy week for Yahoo. Layoffs have already started and from the looks of things it is not going good. Among the no-names let go there was someone you might have heard of. Yahoo has let go their VP of marketing for their search-ads business, Todd Daum. Also people are saying that instead of the normal 3 months severance pay they are only getting 2 months. No word of if this is true or not. If you are a Yahoo employee best of luck to you this week.

2 Responses to “Yahoo Turns Down Microsoft”

  1. Moulinneuf said on February 13th, 2008 at 6:15 pm

    Bob , you play Yahoo , I play Microsoft :

    Me : I make an unwanted , unwarranted offer of 10$ CANADIAN for all your online think network plus your blog , with you as editor included !!!

    What ? Seem fair to me on the basis that on the moon you would weight much less , as I plan to relocate you there … That both our combined might would make us get one more RSS reader …

    You : Are you crazy my blog alone is worth 65k + .

    Now you really undertstand the feeling at Yahoo :

    http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-sum-of-yahoos-parts-worth-more-than-the-whole-analyst

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_Yahoo!

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Yahoo!-owned_sites_and_services

    You do the math …

    - Lay-off are part of the picture when people don’t perform as expected. When they add no value to the company and are draining money that could be put elsewhere.

    - Microsoft and Yahoo combined = Less income source , because Microsoft will not be called Micro-Hoo first it’s an acqisition offer not a merger.

    - They would cut the number of site and staff position that are similar , they would also be one source of income so they would charge less for publisher and pay less rewards to the affiliate and marketing as they have an incentive to attract publishing at lower cost in order to compete with Google.

    - Stock value could be at 5 cents , because the price value is not tied to the company real worth , it’s what people want to pay on that day.

    -If Microsoft offer you a price double/quadruple it and it’s what it’s really worth. They are known to low bid company. That’s why they usually loose bidding wars to other’s.

    Microsoft first offer on Youtube was 5 million once they knew Google was interested, Google has acquired YouTube for $1.65 billion.

    Microsoft Yahoo bids tell me more that Microsoft is seeing problem with it’s core market in the futur and is trying to branch out.

    - Free software Office suit and free online office suite are tapping directly into it’s Office suite income.
    - Making Vista almost drained there R&D ressource both in cash and developpers.
    - The competition on the OS front is heating up. Withh Apple leading the way for now.
    - There LIVE service are not gaining real momentum.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Live

    Note : I am not saying there not going to be making huge amount of money with it , I am saying that other’s combined or alone ( google , Yahoo , etc … ) will make more then them.

    On the other end china markets are opening up and Yahoo is very well positionned there.

    I am sorry to say but The US economy drive Microsoft for the most part. It’s not looking good on that front.

    Also Bill Gate is leaving as much as I like Ballmer as a salesman and marketer he is not really a visionnary but an executor of idea.

    That’s my summarized take.

    Reply

    MyAvatars 0.2
    Sean said on February 13th, 2008 at 7:34 pm

    I don’t see Yahoo as a compatible company for Microsoft. It’s different mindsets with different goals.

    Reply

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