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Microsoft and News Corp in Yahoo Bid Talks
KingAlanI writes "The New York Times website is reporting that Microsoft is trying another angle in its bid for Yahoo: joining up with another behemoth, Murdoch's News Corporation.
This is still very much in the preliminary stage, if anything, but an important development to consider. The idea of Yahoo working with fellow Web giant Google, in a plan to counteract Microsoft's takeover plan, is also discussed."
Of course! We need more EVIL! Get Murdoch on board....
For singlehandledly making AOL relevant again. I think my collection of AOL disks just increased in value.
This is a better link because it's reg-free.
The wrinkly photo of Murdoch (complete with disembodied hand) is just icing on the cake.
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
Don't count out another media player:
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN0929033920080410?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&rpc=22&sp=true
Hard to know whether this is going to turn into a bidding war, but no matter what happens, Yahoo's days as an independant 'net player on the big stage are numbered.
The problem with socialism is that they always run out of other people's money. - Margaret Thatcher
IMHO, I don't think Microsoft is going to gain anything by taking over Apple, Yahoo OR Google. They have acquired Hotmail earlier, and I personally know many friends switching from Hotmail to something else for pathetic services. I do not have a single contact with Hotmail address today.
MSFT is not known for quality, and, yes, it is loss to the world to have lost a good company to MSFT. But MSFT is not going to gain anything
/troll
hilarious
If Microsoft is trying to convince anyone that its hostile takeover of Yahoo isn't evil, it's going in exactly the wrong direction.
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make install -not war
From the article...
"Microsoft immediately blasted the idea of a search advertising partnership between Yahoo and Google, saying it would be anticompetitive. âoeAny definitive agreement between Yahoo and Google would consolidate over 90 percent of the search advertising market in Googleâ(TM)s hands,â Microsoft said in a statement."
For some reason, this cry for justice rings empty. Does Microsoft honestly think THEY can make such complaints given their own gregarious behavior?
Bearded Dragon
All in all, the goal seems to be to strengthen Yahoo in order to push up the stock price to avoid a hostile takeover. The poison pill approach is to make the company look so bad that nobody would want to buy it. I don't think that's what Yahoo's trying to do at all.
My blog
Will this actually lure people away from Google? Right now the mentality is quite simply "Google It".
I'm not sure we'll be hearing "Yahoo! It" or "MSN It" any time soon.
It probably doesn't help that Google is the default search in Firefox either.
THE HONOUR OF THE KNIGHTS - CC Licensed Sci-Fi Novel
The parent wrote, "It's been a long time since I had a business class. Isn't this what is called the poison pill? Either buying up things that make the company a poor purchase decision, or entering into contracts that do the same thing etc?"
I think it would qualify more as a poison pill strategy if Yahoo! gave up their own ad service completely and signed a binding long-term agreement with Google, the kind that survives mergers and buy-outs.
Bearded Dragon
It could've said "Microsoft and Newscorp have banded together to make the proper sacrifices to Cthulhu to ensure their bid for Yahoo! is accepted." At least then the circle of evil would be complete.
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." -Albert Einstein
MSFT wouldn't enter the deal if it would hurt them.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
Hey you've got right wing zealotry in my monopoly.
Hey you've got monopoly in my right right wing politics.
Ah two great evils that taste better together.
evil is as evil does
MicroFOX!
-516
The recent announcement about Yahoo testing Adsense for search result advertising just proves that MS is right and that Yahoo is not a viable standalone entity. We need strong and serious competition for Google because the last thing the world needs is a monopoly on the source of revenue for ad properties. Yahoo has now admitted defeat and MS is willing to put up the challenge. Throw in Fox and we could have a real competitor for Google.
Of course, combining 3 "also rans"doesn't mean we get a winner, just that we'll at least likely have a fight!
True enough, but, y'know, why spend all this money on lawyers just to make this thing happen just to have a bit of a limp struggle against the google-constrictor. What's the point? The three of them are screwed as an entity. They could no more pull a decent web presence out of this than I could pull a flaming, banjo-playing clown out of my ass.
Anyway, google as a monopoly for a few years sounds quite nice. I like monopolies. Aren't monopolies what gave us all that stuff that isn't MS, that has allowed MS to degenerate quietly into the laughable junk it is, you know, things like Linux, and google?
You may not agree with what I say, but you should fight to the death to allow me to say it, by modding me up.
it is designed to kill Google, not compete. They are going to use their monopoly to control the web by forcing all MSIE users to become 'live'. Once done, their search engine will be integrated with their desktop. Of course, Google will sue in court later on, MS will be found guilty, and MS will simply pay. Not a bad deal for MS.
But I am guessing that W would allow it (MS paid a lot of money to his campaign), but EU, China, Russia, and japan will nix it. And yes, those countries do have a say. After all, they can simply shut down all Windows sales, which would push Linux to the forefront. And from their POV, that would mean new business opportunities.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
As long as its a term for your product or service, you are fine. When it enters popular usage as a generic term for products or services in your market (as happened with Xerox and Kleenex), you're screwed. While Google is often used as a verb for running internet searches, its not really clear to me that its used in a brand-generic sense (as "search on the internet") rather than a brand-specific but engine-generic sense (as "search on the applicable Google service"). Lots of people I know use "Google" as a verb, but they all use Google search engines as, if not their only, their primary engines for "generic" searches, so when they say "Google it" or "I Googled it", they really mean "search(ed) on Google", not "search(ed) on the internet".
"... if you take the history of all buy-outs, the Net benefit for the firm doing the buying is roughly 0%."
Source: Wikipedia article about Mergers and Acquisitions. Quote: "Historically, mergers have often failed (Straub, 2007) to add significantly to the value of the acquiring firm's shares (King, et al., 2004)."
That idea is well-known, but I was unable to find another link quickly. (It's only a Slashdot comment, not the result of a research project.) For example, the merger of Time-Warner and AOL is the worst business decision of human history, and lowered the value of Time-Warner so much that employees lost much of their invested savings.
The basic point seems valid in this case, also. Microsoft has proven, over many years, that it does not know how to run a search engine. Yahoo has proven, over many years, that...
I'm guessing that Steve Ballmer is doing this because he wants an outlet for his anger. It's difficult to see how owning Yahoo can benefit Microsoft. One possibility is that Microsoft can try to get a partial monopoly over some kinds of internet traffic. Many people with little technical knowledge use whatever Microsoft pushes them towards.
Microsoft is NOT a successful company, in my opinion. If Microsoft didn't have one-time monopolies created during a time when people were ignorant about computers, it would not make much profit.
Also, the failure of Vista may indicate that Microsoft can no longer hire people intelligent enough to write working software.