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Microsoft Sets Three Week Deadline for Yahoo! In Public Letter

Posted by Zonk on from the little-note-from-me-to-you dept.

An anonymous reader writes "In a letter sent today, Microsoft writes to Yahoo's board of directors to tell them that they would like to 'negotiate a definitive agreement on a combination of our companies.' Their message is a combination of friend and foe: 'If we have not concluded an agreement within the next three weeks, we will be compelled to take our case directly to your shareholders.'"

20 of 175 comments (clear)

  1. Well, it was nice knowing you Yahoo... by HerculesMO · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Which means frankly, that MS is going to own Yahoo.

    I don't know if this is good or bad, but time will tell... The shareholders hear only the sounds that money makes, and they are going to sell out quickly, especially in the midst of this recession.

    --
    The price is always right if someone else is paying.
    1. Re:Well, it was nice knowing you Yahoo... by mkiwi · · Score: 5, Funny

      Personally I think it would be funny if Google and Yahoo got some sort of deal together like TFA suggests might happen. If you can imagine how mad Balmer would get after a top programmer leaves, just imagine what would happen if Yahoo tied itself to Google. He'd be freakin foaming at the mouth and no chair in the Seattle area would be safe from him.

    2. Re:Well, it was nice knowing you Yahoo... by digital19 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      No joke! Scanning msn.com right now the headline is 'is she divorced or just single, why it matters' and the three 'Popular Searches' are Naomi Campbell, Magnum P.I. and Mega Millions.

      What gutter demographic are they looking for with this? They should look at their absolute cr#$ tabloid journalism and lack of any substantial news as probable reasons why people choose yahoo over msn/hotmail.

      Instead they'll take over a company and wonder why it crashes in to the ground in a few years time.

    3. Re:Well, it was nice knowing you Yahoo... by Adambomb · · Score: 3, Funny

      damn, i've been mistaking the use of chairs my whole life.

      --
      Ice Cream has no bones.
    4. Re:Well, it was nice knowing you Yahoo... by contrapunctus · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I really want to agree with you but I teach at a small college and (almost) all my students couldn't care less about Microsoft and trust. They all have hotmail or msn or yahoo email addresses, lay it all out on facebook and myspace and they don't know about MSs tactics. So if MS is shooting for the (lucrative) young-and-ignorant demographic, they will succeed (people who know what they are in the minority).

      I've found that young people very trusting and don't care about privacy.

      So just like the rest of the sleazy successful businesses of targeting the ignorant (spam, late night commercials, mailings, etc.), they will find a big market and make money...
      Wal-mart doesn't make money by earning trust or catering to the elite either. Same market.

  2. Galactica? by tjstork · · Score: 4, Funny

    Microsoft trying to take over Yahoo is old news. Microsoft threatening someone is old news. Techies should be rejoicing over the return of Galactica, and yet, what do we get here? Sadly, silence. Some geeks these days!

    To paraphrase Captain Kirk: "I mock your superior intellect."

    And Spock. "He is very intelligent, but his thinking is two dimensional."

    --
    This is my sig.
  3. Shit or get off the pot. by dpaluszek · · Score: 4, Funny

    Come on, Yahoo. I think Microsoft is being reasonable here, plus offering quite a bit. Even though I'm not a huge Microsoft fan, there is a thing called common courtesy.

    1. Re:Shit or get off the pot. by borgheron · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Sitting on the sidelines and saying what someone should do with a company they've built up from the ashes is very easy for you, but you have to consider what they're thinking. The people who founded Yahoo are free thinkers.

      Yahoo is thought of (or was, during the boom) almost like Google is today. It's hard to build something from nothing and then have someone threaten to take it away like this. MS is strong arming them. They're basically saying "Sell or we'll take you over by rousing your stock holders" which is just business... but you have to really consider it from the perspective of the people who have created and grown with the company from the beginning.

      If I were the yahoo management, I would be fighting MS with everything I have and looking for an alternate deal to screw them.

      --
      Gregory Casamento
      ## Chief Maintainer for GNUstep
    2. Re:Shit or get off the pot. by digital19 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I think that's exactly it. People want to frame this as 'it's a good deal now that we're in a recession'... as if economics was the only motivational factor behind anyones' existence.

      I would imagine Jerry Yang finds himself opposed to many of Microsoft's core operating principles.

      Undoubtedly, he will cringe when he types yahoo.com into his browser a few years from now.

    3. Re:Shit or get off the pot. by jorghis · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The founders and management of Yahoo dont own the company, it isnt their decision nor should it be. The founders made the decision that they wanted to go public and basically sell the company to others. Sure, they built it from ashes, but they made the decision to sell it. (for quite a bit of money too)

      What is becoming apparant now is that they really just wanted all the money they got from selling the company to the general public, they didnt actually want other people to be the real owners of the company. You cant have your cake and eat it too, if you sell controlling shares of your company you have to accept that you cant just do whatever you want to with it, you have an obligation to act in the best interests of the shareholders. (the real owners of the company) If the founder of a company cant accept that he should just keep his company private.

    4. Re:Shit or get off the pot. by pclminion · · Score: 4, Insightful

      They're basically saying "Sell or we'll take you over by rousing your stock holders" which is just business... but you have to really consider it from the perspective of the people who have created and grown with the company from the beginning.

      Boo-hoo. Those poor, poor billionaires. Their lives will have been meaningless.

      Don't want to be subject to hostile takeovers? Don't go public. And good luck making a few billion.

  4. M$oft getting better every day! by no-body · · Score: 3, Funny

    and making a lot more friends on the way.

    Seems to become a staff/owner aging issue or they are getting desparate.

  5. Re:And then there were N..... by jmpeax · · Score: 3, Insightful

    a world of open-source I don't see a world of open source. I see a world of closed source in which open source is making some small (but significant) strides.
    --
    Amnesty International
  6. Re:oh teh noes!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I don't think you understand. In a publicly held company, the shareholders own the company. If they want money (and they do), they'll just vote out the board at Yahoo and vote in one that is in favor of being bought out.

  7. Shareholders are supposed to sell ... by AHumbleOpinion · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The shareholders hear only the sounds that money makes, and they are going to sell out quickly, ...

    Shareholders are supposed to sell when they receive an advantageous offer. Advantageous being a return that is more likely greater than holding the stock. What do you think shareholders are, some sort of fanboys? More importantly, why do think the founders of the company went public and brought in shareholders, it was so that the founders could pocket a lot of money. So now the story that the founders sold to the shareholders turns out not to be true, and the shareholders are looking for their best option. This is the way public financing works.

    ... especially in the midst of this recession.

    The motivation to sell in this specific case is not the recession but a failed business model.

    FWIW, the midst of a recession is usually the time to buy. The onset of a recession is usually the time to sell.

    1. Re:Shareholders are supposed to sell ... by MikeBabcock · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Although I do frequently have to point out to people how the whole concept of publicly traded companies works, I must disagree with you on this point; Shareholders are not supposed to do anything. Shareholders are of course free to do whatever they want (with obvious illegalities like insider trading aside), but there is no "thou shalt" commandments list for shareholders.

      Personally, more shareholders should behave as what they are -- partial owners of the company, and therefore do what they believe is right for the company, the public, the environment, as they see fit, not just the bottom line, but they can buy or sell the stock whenever they like if they feel like doing so and have a seller/buyer available to do so.

      Basically, if most of your shareholders don't want the company sold because they think its a bad idea even if it IS financially advantageous, then good for them, and it won't sell.

      --
      - Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
  8. Re:And then there were N..... by Ant+P. · · Score: 3, Insightful

    In a world of closed source glass-clad skyscrapers, open source is the concrete and steel. Just because you can't see it doesn't mean it's not there.

  9. Re:And then there were N..... by westlake · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Two companies scrambling to maintain relevance, control and faltering business models in a world of open-source...

    a faltering business model isn't generally associated with a company that is reporting 15% growth in revenues in the states, 20% in the EU and 30% in places like China - each quarter.

  10. Re:What does Yahoo have that MS wants? by westlake · · Score: 4, Insightful
    What the hell does Yahoo have that MS wants so badly?

    about 16 million unique visitors to its web sites each month.

  11. Panic? by icsx · · Score: 3, Informative

    Microsoft must be real desperate for getting Yahoo to theirselves. Funny thing is that there is no one to stop them if the stockholders will sell.