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Yahoo May Re-Consider Google Alliance, Rebuff Microsoft
anastasd writes "Reuters is reporting that Yahoo might consider a business alliance with Google as a way to top a $44.6 billion takeover proposal by Microsoft. 'Yahoo management is considering revisiting talks it held with Google several months ago on an alliance as an alternative to Microsoft's bid, that source said. At $31 a share, Yahoo believes the bid undervalues the company, two sources said. A second source close to Yahoo said it had received a procession of preliminary contacts by media, technology, telephone and financial companies. But the source said they were unaware whether any alternative bid was in the offing.'"
too bad TimeWarner or CNN or some other big media company could not bail yahoo out, i rather see something like that than for microsoft getting their dirty paws on them...
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Yahoo thinks they're worth more than $44.6 billion? What exactly does yahoo do, or own, that makes money?
Yahoo is just acting like this in order to get a higher price from MS.
Google + Yahoo! wouldn't fly with the antitrust regulators.
Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
The interesting thing is going to be whether Google successfully monetizes technological forays outside their core competence. Microsoft has been trying for decades to come up with a major moneymaker other than the Windows/Office duo and has largely failed.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Over the past 3 months, Yahoo's stock has been dropping like a rock -- from $33 to $19. It jumped back up to $28 after the Microsoft takeover announcement, but that just means Microsoft will have to kick in another couple billion to get the deal through.
And it also means that Google would have to pay *EVEN MORE* than that in order to make a better offer than Microsoft. Why would Google spend $46+ Billion just to buy a competitor who is sinking fast? Just doesn't make sense. Google has a lot of money, but I doubt they're willing to spend *THAT MUCH* just to piss off Microsoft.
Yahoo Mail has many more users than Gmail, and tends to have a more mass-market (less techie) demographic, especially if you consider Yahoo Groups sort of related. Yahoo Messenger is of course orders of magnitude more popular than Google Talk.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Whether or not Yahoo! knows it -- they need Microsoft. They've been bleeding the last several years with missteps and delays with Panama. Let me see if the DOJ would approve a deal that would give a 90%+ search engine monopoly to Google. Doubt it. Microsoft like it or not is the best option for Yahoo!
This is interesting given the timing of the Microsoft bid and the state of the wireless auction. Could Microsoft have waited until they believed Google had committed its resources to a spectrum bid before making a move to take Yahoo?
Ambiguous graph aside, alexa still ranks yahoo.com number one. Over the past three months, yahoo beats google by 0.5% of the internet population. Digging through the info pages on both, Yahoo has twice the page views for each individual user. Putting together equivalent users with twice the page views is probably why Yahoo is ranked number 1 and Google number 2 over the past three months (1 and 4 for a week and 42 and 53 for yesterday). As far as my math goes, it seems that an ad on Yahoo would get seen on average twice more than one on Google.
Can't argue with stocks, but Yahoo's never been good with making money - Google and Microsoft are. Yahoo is good because it's got controlling stakes in instant messaging and an enormous amount of people backing them and their community. If you can get any sort of money earner on those pages, that finance page won't count for shit.
(I'd also like to point out you had to link to yahoo for that page)
I live in constant fear of the Coming of the Red Spiders.
They handle so much data that to me it doesnt matter too much about their privacy policy.
;)
It is impossible for them to be reading my email or anything else I wouldnt like.
Google Maps is made by Aussies you know.
Its far better than WhereIs for most things although it doesnt function as a phone book.
I hate WhereIs's UI.
Check out this blog post by Google's Senior Vice President and Chief Legal Officer, David Drummond on Google's Corporate Blog. Google clearly sees this deal as a direct threat to the future of the Internet. They are not going to let Microsoft walk all over them like Netscape. Microsoft's bid for Yahoo! was a declaration of war:
Yahoo! and the future of the Internet
2/03/2008 11:45:00 AM
Posted by David Drummond, Senior Vice President, Corporate Development
and Chief Legal Officer
The openness of the Internet is what made Google -- and Yahoo! --possible. A good idea that users find useful spreads quickly. Businesses can be created around the idea. Users benefit from constant innovation. It's what makes the Internet such an exciting place.
So Microsoft's hostile bid for Yahoo! raises troubling questions. This is about more than simply a financial transaction, one company taking over another. It's about preserving the underlying principles of the Internet: openness and innovation.
Could Microsoft now attempt to exert the same sort of inappropriate and illegal influence over the Internet that it did with the PC? While the Internet rewards competitive innovation, Microsoft has frequently sought to establish proprietary monopolies -- and then leverage its dominance into new, adjacent markets.
Could the acquisition of Yahoo! allow Microsoft -- despite its legacy of serious legal and regulatory offenses -- to extend unfair practices from browsers and operating systems to the Internet? In addition, Microsoft plus Yahoo! equals an overwhelming share of instant messaging and web email accounts. And between them, the two companies operate the two most heavily trafficked portals on the Internet. Could a combination of the two take advantage of a PC software monopoly to
unfairly limit the ability of consumers to freely access competitors' email, IM, and web-based services? Policymakers around the world need to ask these questions -- and consumers deserve satisfying answers.
This hostile bid was announced on Friday, so there is plenty of time for these questions to be thoroughly addressed. We take Internet openness, choice and innovation seriously. They are the core of our culture. We believe that the interests of Internet users come first --and should come first -- as the merits of this proposed acquisition are examined and alternatives explored.
I think there have been a good number of misconceptions about Microsoft's $45 billion offer for Yahoo!, and there are a few points that we ought to make note of.
Firstly, Microsoft's valuation indicates their valuation of Yahoo! being part of Microsoft. Synergies account for the higher value!
Secondly, with the offer, Yahoo! is now "in play", and there is a consequent expectation that someone such as Google may come along and make an offer. Since it is in play, people expect an offer that comes at a premium (which of course gets priced in!). Now, this is implicitly priced into the 62% premium that Microsoft has offered, and they have set it high enough (in their estimate) so as to price out any potential offers from others.
If Google decides to get involved, they have plenty of antitrust concerns in terms of an overall takeover bid. Can they take a play out of Microsoft's playbook (e.g., 1.6% stake in Facebook) and offer a larger premium for a substantial stake of the company (e.g., $60/share for say 35% of Yahoo!)? I would not be surprised if we see such a strategy.
Once the directors receive an offer, it is their duty to figure out whether their shareholders are better off with Yahoo alone or not. If they figure out that it is better selling (I am sure they did already), it is their obligation under current Delaware law to auction the company. That's exactly what they are doing. There isn't a single transaction that closes at the starting price.
If the directors decide that it is better going alone, it will end up with a Proxy fight and a lot of lawsuits (those will happen anyway)
Right now, arbitrageurs are going long on Yahoo and short on MS. I really doubt this. They are not doing this just to jack up the price, I really think they are trying to avoid the takeover and are taking steps to try and defend themselves. This is a classic hostile takeover defense strategy. I'm pretty sure Yahoo! doesn't want to be acquired or merged with Microsoft. This takeover attempt was obviously hostile. Yahoo! has rebuffed Microsoft according to reports for a year. Do you really think a Stanford guy like Yang wants to see his life's work swollowed up by "the borg." There only chance to avoid the takeover is to find a white-knight like Google who can bail them out:
From: http://investment.suite101.com/article.cfm/posttakeover_defense_strategies
White Knight and White Squire Techniques
Employing a white knight defense is often the best solution available
to target companies. It involves finding a third party, a white
knight, that a target company can partner with and which is considered
a good strategic fit with the target. Finding such a white knight can
result in justifying higher market capitalization of the target and
making it more difficult/expensive for an acquirer to go through with
the bid.
Finally, a white squire defense involves finding a friendly and
strategically suitable third party to buy a considerable minority
holding in the target company that could be sufficient to block a
hostile takeover without selling any of the crown jewels, selling of
the entire company, or making any foolish counter bids.
Data mining. Profiling. You don't need to personally "read" your emails to do that.
The exact same thing that Microsoft would be acquiring. Granted it would be more of a benefit to Microsoft than to Google at this stage in the game, but who wouldn't want the #1 Website ranked in the world?. MSN had the position for the first half of 2007, but now they're crashing hard, and they never could beat out yahoo in the five years before that. Now the question is this: Which would you rather see, MSN fall further from the #5 slot, or Microsoft acquire Yahoo and be in control of the current #1 position?
Granted, M$ takes control of Yahoo, it's probably not going to be #1 for much longer (I know I'd be dropping my Yahoo mail accounts and probably joining my wife on Gmail), but since when do investors care what's going to happen, they want immediate returns on investment. And having their company say "We just bought the #1 spot" sounds real good to stupid masses with money to burn.
But then, that's just my $0.02USD (has the Peso out-done us yet on the conversion rate?)
Argue all you want over who has what, but what you had AND have does not compare to what you can have. The reason that I say that is that Yahoo does not make it worth a techies time to either stay there OR come to them. Yahoo treats their techies like a bunch of well, yahoos. Very little incentives to stay there. In fact, they have treated their sales ppl like Gods, and yet these are the bozos who will leave a company at the first wind.
MS USE to have something to offer by having a stock that would increase. But the company overall was worthless which is why once somebody made the money via stock, they are gone. These days, MS stock is over priced and has not really changed in price for a long time. Worse, they have also gone to treating their sales ppl like gods, while the techies get far less.
Google is still in that phase where not only does the stock continue to grow (overall), but the techies (those that come up with good ideas ) are treated decently. I suspect that the sales ppl are also treated well, but the techies can make a portion of the money on their ideas. In fact, Google will help you to spin off if good enough. The other 2 simply steal your work.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
why is it that live.com looks like the google site?
1: If you are suing or being sued, the opposing side would *love* access to your private E-mails. Since its civil, it can be brought into a court, and every single E-mail you have dragged in front of a jury to prove your unreliability or incompetence by the opposing side to sack your case. Yes, attorneys have private investigators whose sole job is to find dirt (relevant or not) on the opposing side, and availability of E-mails would give them a field day.
2: An enemy who has an axe to grind, would love to grab the E-mails to publicize just to damage rep, from quotations to E-mailed pictures. Good luck suing in a US court if the mails are posted; truth is an absolute defense.
3: Insurance companies would love to grab your personal E-mails so they have grounds for not paying (forcing you to sue, see #1) should you have to file a claim.
4: A random DA who is looking to stay elected may grab the personal E-mails for some criminal case. For example if you talked about using a neighbor's wireless when yours was down, the DA could press felony charges depending on area and laws.
5: Prospective employers would love that info to have grounds to easily fire or deny raises, or just hold it above your head as something to be blacklisted for.
6: Someone looking at the mail may find a reason to go after your family or friends for criminal or civil stuff. For example, a friend talking about trying to withdraw from heroin could be targeted for a bust, probable cause the E-mail sent.
7: You are going for elected office, and the opposing guy grabs the E-mail and uses out of context blurbs to blast out ads to ensure you don't get a single vote
8: You never know who may hit you with it a decade or 20 years from now.
All and all, I avoid the free providers, and use a private service that I pay for that has a distinct privacy policy other than "well, we can do what we want with this data, including make DVDs of it to sell to the highest bidder" (Think cellphone records for sale cheap.) You never know when an E-mail that was private may end up in the hands of someone you *really* don't want.
The reason tech people don't worry about a Google monopoly is we realize Google is not and can not be a monopoly, because the markets Google operates in have low barriers to entry. Yes, techies trust Google more than they trust Microsoft, but trust in Google is not necessary to realize that Google simply can't acquire monopoly power the way Microsoft did. Without high barriers to entry it is impossible for Google to come anywhere *near* the market share percentages Microsoft continues to enjoy in the OS and office software markets (>90%).
Furthermore, Google shows little interest in erecting barriers to entry; quite the opposite in fact, Google has always fought to keep those barriers *low*. Witness the ease of switching from GMail to another webmail provider: automatic forwarding and free POP/IMAP access make it far easier than, say, Microsoft's Hotmail. Also witness their lobbying for net neutrality: while there is obviously an element of self-interest in not wanting to pay ISP extortion fees, a non-neutral net could be a huge barrier to entry in Google's market, potentially in the end being to Google's benefit. So far, Google has rejected such tactics.
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Yahoo is the provisioner of email to Rogers, a very large ISP (and cell phone provider, among other things) here in Canada. Rogers' competitor, Sympatico is allied with MSN. So, there will be some impact here if this goes through.
The implications of Microsoft bidding $44.6 B for Yahoo are many, and they are all bad news. Bad for customers, bad for the internet at large, bad for employees, and bad for open source.
Google acquiring Yahoo is a lesser evil, but still one less competitor to keep the others honest.
But with an offer on the table, and a possible counter offer/alliance from Google, something is going to happen, and it will have profound implications on many people.
2bits.com, Inc: Drupal, WordPress, and LAMP performance tuning.
And that's why slashdot is ranked #1197.
It's not a measurement of the Internet population at large; it's a measurement of who installs the Alexa Toolbar. I don't know even one person who I have seen it had installed. The demography Alexa measures is most likely the most clueless of clueless users, since there's nothing even in it for you if you use it, just for Alexa. Not exactly geek material, or even an adequately seasoned online user.
Since the demography is likely skewed and since it's becoming a nich product in comparison to e.g. the Google toolbar that actually offers some convenient benefits too (and seems to be bundled with more applications), I wouldn't seriously use it when discussing the Internet population at large.
Actually, I rarely hear anyone even using Yahoo! besides for side services like Flickr (but that's not counted as Yahoo by Alexa as it counts domains). However, I'm for that reason not surprised that Alexa lists Yahoo so highly. That actually rather confirms my belief in that it has skewed statistics due to the special demography it targets with their useless toolbar.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Because $31 now, for $18 may, according to some, be better than i guess about $38 some time in the near to far future.
To add some real-world numbers: GOOG peaked at almost $750 last november. Even though analysts valued it in the $900-$1000 range, it dropped a tiny bit since then, just some 30%. Also, with valuations ranging from $600-$900 (and a mean valuation of about $725 over some 30 brokers) it managed to lose another 8.5% over the course of the last trading day.
Have you got somewhere from Google saying they don't do that? Because its certainly a typical move companies like Google, so it would follow that Google also does it.
Although your claim at being able to predict the future does make me question whether or not you are a rational person when it comes to Google.
Such as recording every click, every URL and everywhere you've ever been via that damn toolbar, and somehow considering that to be acceptable public domain knowledge.
A general rule I like to employ
toolbar = data mining = not on my PC
On a search engine?
Dear god no! javascript already infects too many webpages. It's unnecessary and a blight on what should be the simplest UI going, the search engine. One box, one button, a page of results.
Their search sounds interesting. Shame I'll not be using it now.