Slashdot Mirror
Why Yahoo Turned Microsoft Down
quarterbuck writes "The NYTimes has up a great blog post that explains a bit of the backstory behind the Yahoo-Microsoft No-deal. While Jerry Yang did not want to sell the company, it is not likely that he could have said No to Microsoft, and explained it to shareholders, without the help of Google. The article gives reasons behind Google's tossing a lifeline to its biggest competitor, and the 'coop-etition' that has been going on between the two companies, which both emerged out of Stanford University."
If Yahoo's stock price continues to decline, MS has intelligently kept their offer "on the table".
If stockholders come to MS for a bailout of their capital, they don't even need a hostile takeover -- it will be a willing one. And the profits Yahoo posts from Google won't reflect in their stock price for a while.
We'll see how long it takes Yahoo investors to either let the company rebound, or to bail themselves out. Yang is in an interesting position, that's all I can say.
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
That's funny because I made a small fortune on the Google IPO. I sold and put it into safer investments since that time and don't regret it, however. I think it's way overvalued at the present time but I was happy to take my profits and run.
Why google helped yahoo? Because it tries to "do no evil". And microsoft is bigger competitor than yahoo (would be even bigger WITH yahoo).
Extreme Programming - Redundant Array of Inexpensive Developers
1. Microsoft probably can and will figure out a way to eventually stack the board of in directors in their favor at Yahoo. Microsoft has time, Yahoo doesn't.
2. Google is keeping their enemies closer at this point. This is basically a white-knight move on Google's part to keep Microsoft out of their space at all costs. The question to Google is how long will it be until this kind of action starts affecting their bottom line numbers.
In a very heartless way, I'm all for the Microsoft->Yahoo acquisition. Most acquisitions fail to generate anything near the claims management makes. Microsoft would simply leave the door open for ex-Yahoo employees to startup things that would be a bigger thorn in Microsoft's side.
Death by thousands of thorns if you will pardon the pun.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
And at least now you can always choose search engine #2 to avoid most of the spam search responses, which usually target search engine #1, but only as long as #2 is itself a good search engine.
"I zero-index my hamsters" - Willtor (147206)
Any negotiations that Yahoo's board entered into were done in bad faith and in violation of the board's obligations to the shareholders that elected it.
What obligation is that? Is the board obligated to make a deal with Microsoft? Are they obligated to engage in a good faith negotiation with them?
You'd have to show that rejecting Microsoft's unsolicited bid was not in the best interests of Yahoo's shareholders. That may seem obvious to you now, but only time will tell. If they did negotiate in bad-faith, that is an affront to Microsoft, sure... but not grounds for a shareholder action per se. Keep in mind that they were responding to an unsolicited and unwelcome bid.
I am making a fortune on YHOO right now. Bought in right after the panic on monday.
All the analysis I've read is just nonsense. Google knows something that Microsoft and business analysts don't have a clue about.
A thriving market place makes a lot of money for everyone, yourself included. You have a vested interest in maintaining the market place.
The loss of a major fair playing competitor and the introduction of a stronger destruction driven monopolist makes it harder for everyone, including Google, to make money.
Google wants yahoo in place. They make money from Yahoo. Yahoo wants google in place, they make money with google. Where their businesses do not conflict, they work together. Both Yahoo and Google aren't fighting to destroy one another, they are in business to make money. It is friendly and profitable competition. They way it should be. The that capitalism works best.
Microsoft on the other hand can not compete on a fair market. They never have and never will be able. They must capitalize on their illegally maintained windows and office monopoly to destroy competition and destroy the marketplace leaving only enough business for themselves.
Google is a strong competitor, I don't "trust" them per se'. for The time being, however, they've shown that they understand ethics and the phrase "a rising tide lifts all boats."
It hasn't been all peaches and cream for the Wii.
Wii, though less technologically advanced than Microsoft's Xbox 360 or Sony's PlayStation 3, continues to outsell those machines and is now in more than 20 million homes.
So why are retailers having so much trouble selling Wii games?
Take Super Smash Bros. Brawl. It was one the most hotly anticipated video games of the year; it sold more than 1.4 million copies during the first week of its release.
But sales dropped more than 90 percent over the first four weeks.
A number of games that garnered critical acclaim in recent months, notably the cartoonish action-adventure game Zack & Wiki and the off-kilter action-adventure No More Heroes, have yielded disappointing sales.
Over the first three months of the year, only three other Wii titles broke the list of top 10 best-selling games.
Younger children, women and older consumers, who historically have not been sought by the video-game industry, have discovered video games through the Wii -- just not that many of them.
These new gamers are content with the games they have, often going no further than the Wii Sports game that comes with the machine. They don't buy new games with the fervor of a traditional gamer who is constantly seeking new stimulation.
The average Wii owner buys only 3.7 games a year, compared with 4.7 for Xbox 360 owners and 4.6 for PlayStation 3 owners.
"When you make a game like Zack & Wiki or Boogie, which turns the hard core off and doesn't reach the masses, then you're in trouble."
Wii Fit, an exercise game due next month, is expected to receive more marketing dollars than any game in Nintendo's history -- and the money will not be spent wooing young men. "Wii Fit is just not aimed at hard-core gamers. It's definitely aimed at the Oprah crowd. I bet they sell a million units a week for every pound that Oprah says she lost on it."
New Wii Games Find a Big (but Stingy) Audience [April 21, 2008]