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Microsoft to Pay $240 Million for Stake in Facebook
Nrbelex writes to mention The New York Times is reporting that Microsoft has beat out Google and Yahoo for a 1.6% stake in Facebook. The investment will cost Microsoft $240 million valuing the total site at somewhere around $15 billion. "The astronomical valuation for Facebook is primarily evidence that Microsoft executives believed they could not afford to lose out on the Facebook deal. Google appears to be building a dominant position in the race to serve advertisements online. Fearing it might lose control over the next generation of computer users, Microsoft has been attempting to match and in some cases block Google's plans, even if that effort is costly."
You really have to wonder if the people writing these articles - and this is the NYT as well - have a clue. I mean words can't really describe how flawed it is to suggest a website API (and as the parent points out, a simplistic & fairly inadequate one compared to others) equates to an OS. It seems that the journo's are happy to get caught up in "beliefs" that - when you actually sit down and say "hang on, lets genuinely have a look at the facts here" - sums up to be a big pile of vacuous SFA. Someone needs to fire a bolt of reality into this lot, we (on here) are all happy to point out the basic truth that it is a bubble and it will burst, but it goes beyond that now - even the supposed objective commentators are blowing air into the bubble.
As for MS's purchase - we all know they have more money than sense - but I didn't realise it was that much.