Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft in Talks To Acquire Ebay
thatedeguy writes "The NY Post is reporting that Microsoft and Ebay are in talks for the online auction house to join the Microsoft family." That said, the talks aren't going that well at the moment. From the article: " Sources indicate that the talks, while still active, have cooled somewhat in the last two weeks as executives considered antitrust issues. It is unclear what the full impact of yesterday's advertising and search alliance between Yahoo! and eBay will be for talks between MSN and eBay. One source close to the matter suggested the Yahoo-eBay tie-up would not stop Microsoft from pursuing the online auctioneer."
With MS already in trouble over abuse of market share, I can't see any anti-monopoly commission approving a buyout of this size.
Bidding for Ebay starts at $8 billion, but you can Buy It Now for $12.5 billion.
why would Microsoft want to aquire a whole company when there's nothing eBay can offer that MS can't get by investing a few hundred million in them like they did with apple?
Microsoft, running eBay, PayPal, and Skype.
MS will spend YEARS trying to dump the *nix servers out of Ebay ;-)
Considering that eBay has a market cap that's 20% of Microsoft's, such an acquisition would probably cause a panic among investors and kill the stock. What they're more likely talking about is a partnership/alliance in certain areas.
Help kill corporate productivity!
IMHO this is great news.
1) It gives Google _more_ of an incentive to develop GPay and Googles Ebay (G-Bay?).
2) Now all 3 companies that we love to hate are all in one convient package (Pay-Pal, Ebay, MS)
This is Scary because:
Given the excellent security record that Microsoft OSs' have do we really want pay-pal tied into the OS? OR even worse if Microsoft thinks* you are not using a "Geniune" copy of it's OS, will it put a lock you your paypal account and/or deduct the amount straight from your account.
AND EVEN WORSE: This will make it _very_ easy for MS to start charging $xx/(day/week/month) for using Windows.
OMG the sky is falling! =)
Should make for interesting times.
(The Chinese proverb: "May you live in Interesting Times" is apt I think)
"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." ~Plato (427-347 BC)
I was on the eBay sight this morning and there's a new category labeled "Vaporware". It only had listings for advance purchases of Windows Vista.
It's good to use your head, but not as a battering ram.
I doubt Microsoft is after Ebay itself. I think - for Microsoft - PayPal (owned by Ebay) is the interesting asset here, especially considering their plans for subscription models.
Yes, but how would that directly benefit Microsoft's MSN strategy? I mean if eBay launched a search engine today not many people will say "gee, they're eBay..the famous auction guys! so their search engine must be good!".
Amazon tried to use their success in ecommerce to promote their search engine and yet people didn't leave Google and flock to A9..making your brand name mean one thing is often better than making it many things.
Sure, making MSN the default search on ebay will certainly make a proportion of eBay users MSN users but is that worth enough for Microsoft to pay billions and inherit all the workforce and liabilites of another giant company?
I saw it as "Microsoft in Talks to Acquire Baby"
I need some coffee.
Care about electronic freedom? Consider donating to the EFF!
Now imagine the possibilities... If Google acquired Ebay! : D
Think about it. They try and merge a deal with AOL, and that bombs because Google gets the deal. They then scampy on over to the next "best" thing and they're trying to make a deal with them to combat Google. Microsoft is getting scared and this is just proof how afraid they are that Google is the proverbial needle to the balloon for Microsoft.
It might just be possible that Yahoo! could get purchased by Microsoft as well. If they do, it gives us a wide range of new name possibilities to think about:
...most of these look like unsecure passwords...
M$'s eYahoo!
M$baYahoo!
eYahoo$oft!
Ca$h
If MS acquires any sort of control over eBay/PayPal I will close out my accounts with both. No way I trust anything to do with my money to MS.
Microsoft has the habit of 'Microsoftizing' all software and web sites it acquires, where 'Microsoftize' means "make ugly, slow and unusable".
Hotmail, Frontpage and Visio were all excellent, lightweight products until MS added tons of links and toolbars and menus and images and made everything crawl.
Prepare for slower uglier eBay & Paypal.
Just saw a friend's beta copy of MS Small Business Accounting software and in it it has "E-Bay Integration" included.
MS is going hard after the small business market and yes, that includes all those EBay sellers.
"May you live in Interesting Times" ;-)
Actually, it's a curse
We all remember (don't we) how long it took MS to convert Hotmail?
So either MS runs a Solaris based service for the forseeable future or breaks Ebay for months while they try to get it right.
So what now, one fine day M$ will buy Yahoo! as well?
I bet they're just trying to stop the illegal sales of MS Windows on ebay...
Like I care.
I wonder if then they acquire Friendster.com. Would it be nice if we have "MS Friendster, please login via your .NET Passports"?? :D
Bid Screen of Death.
In the new Vista, after a crash, you have to have the winning bid before getting your crash dump.
That MS is going after skype? so they can get the userbase and the chat program thats been quite successful and to get to that you have to get ebay?
...so it *must* be true! It's right next to the story about the bouncer accused of murder who likes Chaucer and Kung Fu!
Chris Mattern
This scares me enough that I'm canceling my paypal account, the thought of Microsoft with direct access to my money is frightning. It's not much to them, but I haven't seen any buisness deal with Microsoft where someone didn't get screwed.
Parent poster reminds /. that Microsoft WOULD replace *nix servers at eBay with THEIR
flagship product.
It is not outside the realm of rational thought that Microsoft will be desperate to have
some highly visible enterprise to demonstrate the successful adoption of MS Vista OS,
even if they have to buy the company in order for that to happen. Vista is far behind
schedule, and this only after shedding 90% of the new "gotta-have" features they were
touting. Many, many corporations will be unmoved to migrate to Windows Vista OS
until (1) it is a PROVEN product, and (2) prior MS products reach EOL status.
If Microsoft spends 20% of its' cash reserves to purchase eBay, and then another 20%
to massage a working enterprise IT structure in order to demonstate Vista's viability,
what other choice would they have? Their business plan is dependent upon regularly
scheduled corporate upgrades, including the support contracts and training/certification
treadmill. So long as such a massive acquisition takes place during the current (BushCo)
business climate, they are less likely to get pinged by the DoJ regarding monopoly abuse.
You might say that Microsoft's future business is dependent upon a closing "window of
opportunity" to demonstrate a viable enterprise MS Windows Vista deployment. The
most notable feature of Vista, h/w-s/w DRM with corporate key control, would be an
ideal non-political fit for an enterprise utterly dependent upon e-commerce.
Sources indicate that the talks, while still active, have cooled somewhat in the last two weeks as executives considered antitrust issues.
At the face of it, shouldn't it have come to mind BEFORE even beginning any talk? Is this a kind of trial baloon to test how compliant the authorities might be? Are they trying to prepare the minds for a different buyout that will appear more "reasonable" in comparison? MS should already have been split in different operations by now, OS and software, not that this is an absolute remedy, considering what happened with the Bells...
They run mostly Windows 2000.
From the article:
This was confusing because "content" as an adjective means pleased. It is also sometimes used to refer to works of authorship other than computer programs. But in that case, what is Microsoft Game Studios if not "a content company"?Before Ebay had to stop using Open Source software and going with MS provided software.
Good god - if you think Ebay is mostly unusable now just wait and see what happens when the entire operating platform is switched to Microsoft products.
CompetIT? Is that a new CA product?
--- Justin Dearing http://www.justaprogrammer.net/ We're just programmers.
If Microsoft and eBay are indeed talking, it is proof that Microsoft has way too much money just sitting around. Microsoft will ruin eBay if they were too aquire it. I don't want everything to be either Google this and MSN that.
Later,
-Slashdot Junky
.
Landfill Mining Co.
Managing the (Un)natural Resources of Tomorrow
Just do your fucking OS thing and quit trying to control the world. It's getting really, really, really fucking old. You don't have to dominate EVERY ASPECT OF COMPUTING EVER.
Ex nihilo nihil fit.
We live in a society where people think that they have no choice but to bow to Microsoft. That is the power of their monopoly.
eBay's CEO: You can suck my tiny red-blue-yellow-green balls, Mr. Ballmer!
but how much is shipping? I'm interested in this item
After our successfull buyout and pending merger with the United States Government, we at Microsoft believe this merger will only strengthen our products and provide our stock holders with more added value. :P
"If I were bound by all laws everywhere I'm sure I would have committed a capital crime somewhere."
Microsoft has a program called SPLA (Software Provider License Agreement) that anybody who is a Microsoft Partner can join (becoming a Partner is basically filling out a form). There's a bunch of legal stuff you have to sign, but then you get access to their entire library, which you can then resell -- of course you're responsible for supporting it, but you pay MS (or one of their major contractors, like Software Spectrum) a fee per month for each piece of software you use. You can sell per-user 'subscriber access licenses' or per-CPU, unlimited-user licenses. The monthly fees you pay MS are pretety reasonable -- instead of buying SQL Server 2005 Standard Edition for $1500, you pay MS $3/mo/user and charge the client whatever you want. A lot of their commonly-used software is under $5/mo., and some of the more esoteric stuff is only a little more.
That fee includes free upgrades, so if I sell you a Windows license at $5/mo., you would automatically get Vista when it comes out. It's actually a very reasonable program, or at least it appears to be.
CRAP -- this would mean no more Skype for Linux and OS X??? As someone living overseas, I depend on that to make calls back home.
And no, I will NOT install Windows.
As a matter of fact Bungie was bought specifically for the Halo franchise. What made the Halo franchise so alluring was Bungie's previous track record along with the tech demos they had been showing off. Microsoft bought them to make Halo an Xbox exclusive at launch.
Shawn's Tech Articles
...is track down anyone trying to resell Windows or selling pirated copies of Windows. Once they eliminate that threat, they can safely declare victory.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
buy 'em!
You know, how they did with HotMail...and then spent years getting it back up to speed?
Blar.
Microsoft makes large "enterprise" software packages. Google makes small tools that will probably never come out of beta. They are 2 different business models. Microsoft is a company lead by someone who really doesn't have a grip on reality. He's egotistic and doesn't like the success that Google is getting however right or wrong that success is and that's another discussion. MSN's search is such a small amount of Microsoft's income that it just doesn't makes sense that he would want to crush a search engine.
Google doesn't make an Operating System. Google doesn't make an office productivity suite. Google doesn't make a game console.
Under Ballmer's lead Microsoft is starting to fall apart. It's losing direction because of obsessions with beating Google for whatever reason. So what if Google has taken some of Microsoft's talent. That's the way it is in business. Particularly when employees smell the rot that is starting to consume Microsoft.
Either rate, Google isn't the needle to Microsoft's balloon, Ballmer's obsession with Google is.
I recall when I used to visit eBay that a lot of the URLs had isapi.dll in them. After a while, I noticed that this had gone and there was a big 'Powered By Sun' logo on the front page. Now this has gone too.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Set up a fake ebay account then put up a ridiculous, squindilion dollar bid for ebay so that m$ cant buy them :D
I've enjoyed doing business with ebay, but it would be over if there's a buyout.
Don't forget eBay now has Skype. That could get Microsoft into more markets.
Man, MS is just trying to get a hold of a bunch of new business areas. Does anyone feel they should just stick to what has made them what they are? Windows? I mean, Vista needs to be secure, stable and highly functional. Work on that.
[%] Cingular Ringtones
Microsoft probably would not be able to afford eBay. I'm a shareholder of ebay myself, and the way I see it, I would need either:
$45 per share in cash
or
2.5 MSFT shares per 1 ebay share
Which means Microsoft is either going to have to issue $30 billion in debt and spend all their existing cash, or relinquish 30%+ of the ownership of the combined company to eBay shareholders.
I find it hard to believe they're willing to do either.
Now, if they want to buy Skype from us or something, that's a different matter.
Already in process.
Since EBay bought Skype, new features were only added to the windows version (like the video).
In fact, I still use an older version on OS X because it is less BUGGY than the newer, and I hate this clumsy blue login screen inside the user window. The "echo cancellation" feature has also vanished (instead of bug-fixing it).
On windows they have also played some dirty tricks to limitate usage of the software on AMD processors.
I'm already planning to kiss their ass good bye when my skypein subscription is over. Some other VOIP software exist.
I heard about Wengo. It's a GPL crossplatform one. And "oh miracle" has video on Mac and Linux too. It's likely to be my next VOIP.
http://www.openwengo.org/
It used to say Powered by IBM. WebSphere and DB2 on the back-end. I met the guy who's job it was to customize DB2 code for eBay. Interesting. I guess Sun threw them a sweet-heart deal to get their name up there in public eye.
Blar.
This is the New York Post we're talking about folks. Famous for its headline "HEADLESS BODY IN TOPLESS BAR" and also for extorting money to kill negative stories about people. Don't place too much faith in the veracity of this story.
It's simple: I demand prosecution for torture.
MS would vault onto end-user level servicing big time. But the most prominent thing that makes this super-fitting is that Ebay as a Web Portal is just as shitty - or even shittier - than the Windows family is as operating systems. The whole smell of Ebay put's it right next to AOL and shady Sharespyjunkware vendors imho.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
The auction format is not really very well suited to the stuff that I sell, and I have been having fairly good luck with Blujay.com.
Concealed Handgun License Courses in Plano, Texas
Microsoft has earned scorn from customers for suing customers for reselling old/retired software "licenses," a crappy activation process, DRM, bucking established standards, and insecure operating systems and applications (and downplaying vulnerabilities until some script kiddie takes a proof of concept, implements it, and unleashes it). Maintenance is a headache, and many tasks require bringing the system down (e.g., "maintenance windows"). Not only that, but to appear competitive, they redefine common terms such as "downtime" for marketing purposes. Don't get me wrong; Microsoft produces some great products (in terms of feature set) but they libel and slander the competition to make themselves look better.
eBay has earned a reputation for having the world's worst customer service, not refunding charges when they should, and for unjustly cancelling users' auctions. They have been so atrocious that they have earned the moniker "feebay" from a large group of customers.
Therefore, in my view, Microsoft and eBay deserve each other.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Maybe eBay will actually get a GOOD user interface. Say what you will about Microsoft, but their products are pretty slick looking, even if they don't work that great.
.NET :)
The problem will really come when Microsoft tries to port eBay into
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
Actually, there aren't many E15k's most of the solaris boxes are 880's and 1280's. The only E15k's were in paypal, until paypal dumped them for big Hitachi sparc boxes. Also, don't forget that AFAIK all of the paypal front end servers run linux. Oh and some of the ebay frontend boxes are bening moved to solaris 10 running on opterons.
If Microsoft is successful in the acquisition of eBay, then they will in turn acquire Pay-Pal and Skype. I'm sure that's more of a "well duh" statement than anything, but think of what it would do to Microsoft's monoplistic nature.
mshaft couldn't innovate their way out of a paper bag.
I mean, look at it: rather than create or improve a home-built portal to online buying, they go and BUY up one, and then obtain ALL the patents eBay obtained (whether these are ALL legit or who many are illegit is not my point), and then we ALL get to see our personal details, sales activities and more in mshaft's warchest.
I REALLY hot the anti-trust units resoundingly "nay" this. I'm pretty sure the EU will condemn it and not let it fly. If the EU unit forbids it in the EU, then I'll run my ads through the EU units and hope they still show up in the US and elsewhere...
effemmess
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
A+++++++++++ Would buy out large web company to protect our monopoly again.
Training monkeys for world domination since 1439
Before you cancel it, you have to update it for security purposes: https://www.paypal.com/
SIGH
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
And if MS ran eBay, would there be special features only available to IE users? That would encourage eBay users to use Windoze instead of Apple or Linux.
Skype would be perfect for M$ and the way it does business - foothold in the market, recognized name, closed proprietary soft and protocols...
Wouldn't it be enough of a reason for M$ (I don't quite see how an auction-style site could interest them)
Now there is a match made in hell. I can hardly even fathom this. But at least it might spur more people to move to something better.
--Won't that be grand? Computers and the programs will start thinking and the people will stop. - Dr. Walter Gibbs
Bill & Meg are at the opposite ends of spectrum. Bill has always belived in Developers and wants to Develop Products and Portals(After MSN was put into Windows group). Meg a deal maker doesn't understand product development and blew few billion dollars on a third rate product called, Skype.
Bill's merger with Meg would make MSFT priceless.
Skype is what they are after I believe.
In yet another attempt to take over something they know little or nothing about and fail miserably at it, The Borg now want to take over the worlds largest garage sale.
As a client of Ebay, I REFUSE to have my personal information in the hands of a company whose antivirus program lets in more viruses, worms, spyware, and solicitors, than it keeps out.
In fact, both Ebay dropped using Microsoft Passport (now Windows Live ID) a long time ago.
The only thing on Ebay that is not for sale is Ebay.
The Rapture is NOT an exit strategy.
Skype & Paypal are enormous pickups for microsoft. It makes sense for them to incorporate these directly into windows media center. Make phone calls and payments right from your television, but the biggest gain is in hitting google in the pocketbook. Ebay is a huge customer for Google advertising wise. Microsoft may move to pull the plug on that revenue source for google.
Just looking at microsoft's previous endevors you just know that in a short time only M$S platforms would be able to successfully bid. PayPal would require M$S. They might have a kludgy way for Mac's to work in a degraded mode but linux and bsd and other os's just wouldn't work. That would include PayPal so you would not be able to donate to your favorite OpenSource Software writer or Blog.
I saw this bit, and I have to admit that it has me worried
I can only say that I'm pretty slick looking myself. The girls don't run after me though, or not too much. Maybe we should try the feminine attitude to Microsoft products? Just a thought. Don't want to start a flame-war. I think Bill Gates is great. Did you know that he had an Irish grandmother (on the maternal side) ? I've heard that his grandfather (paternal side) was, in fact, a Russian Admiral who got sunk by the Japanese.But you're right - these products really look great. I feel bad about wanting them to work as well as they look (and as well as they're priced). My fault - I'm just stupid.
How many beans make five, anyhow ?
I think I'm having a nightmare! Say it isn't so! At least I'm hopeful that they don't succeed in the transaction. I, for one, would probably look elsewhere for sales of anything and distance myself from eBay, if the transaction effectively happened and completed. I am no fan of the M word, and I am hoping it won't happen, for the public's sake.