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Google Rebuffs Microsoft Takeover Bid

Posted by timothy on from the money-to-be-made-somewhere dept.

Chris Gondek writes "The Sydney Morning Herald has posted that Internet search leader Google has rejected a takeover bid from Microsoft in favour of selling its shares directly to the public. According to The New York Times (Login Required), Google wishes to sell only about $US2 billion worth of shares to the public."

2 of 376 comments (clear)

  1. Re:It's questionable by donnz · · Score: 5, Informative

    Except I read that Google was valued at 9 billion which would sure eat into MS' reserves.

    Here's the Guardian story.

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  2. Re:Google rebuffing M$ is only HALF the story.... by diersing · · Score: 5, Informative
    From our friends at The Register I've pasted this from the following article.

    To understand why, you have to understand how Google makes money, and remarkably few reports have pinpointed how. It's said to be in the 'search engine business' - but unless you take the term at its most literal, to encompass comparison shopping sites, or pay-to-play engines - there is no public search engine business.

    Google is an advertising business. It's an intermediary between media buyers and sites who want to see some advertising revenue: it's simply an old-fashioned media agency. Some of the property, the 'billboards' if you like, in the sense of the word that ClearChannel understands it, Google owns and operates itself. Advertisements show up on the search results, in Usenet groups and of course on its prime 'content' advertising space at the moment, Blogger.com. Google's main rival is Overture, which was recently acquired by Yahoo!. In this business model, Google doesn't 'own' the properties but acts a broker in the classic sense.