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Verizon To Submit Bid For Yahoo (thestack.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Sources close to the company have confirmed that Verizon will submit a first-round bid to purchase Yahoo's web business early next week, and that they may offer to take on Yahoo Japan as well. Time Inc. and Google are said to still be considering whether or not to make an offer, while AT&T, Comcast, and Microsoft have decided against entering a bid. Verizon's willingness to take on Yahoo Japan in the bid may give it a strategic advantage over other bidders. The combined value of Yahoo web and Yahoo Japan Corp. could put the value of the bid out of range for all but the largest investors, potentially putting interested private equity firms such as Bain or TPG out of the running.

68 comments

  1. Can't make it any worse... by wardrich86 · · Score: 3, Informative

    They can't make it any worse than it already is... why bid for a sinking ship?

    1. Re:Can't make it any worse... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 2

      That's a bet I wouldn't touch. I wouldn't trust Yahoo to strategize out of a paper bag; but sheer incompetence helps make any attempts at overt malice somewhat self limiting. Verizon, unfortunately, is amply evil and not bumbling enough to stop themselves.
      br> Plus, if anyone can outdo Yahoo's garish .com bubble era UI designs, it'd be the terrible human beings behind Verizon's flay-and-reskin phone UI work.

    2. Re:Can't make it any worse... by H3lldr0p · · Score: 2

      Because marketing.

      For their internet offerings, this makes some sense. Here is a company that has some (however you may feel about that) experience being a hub for the internet. Now it's your hub. It has a web advertisement arm, it has a lot of emails and tracking data to be mined and spit back up into your larger marketing apparatus, and you can use it to capture an audience through momentum (I don't want to move my email account. it's too much trouble!) as well as exclusive offerings (join now and get the first six episodes of SitCom online for free!).

      As for the rest, that can just be part of the slash and burn portion of the purchase. Wrote down, wrote off, and eventually turned off. No muss, no fuss, and who cares if some artists have been using it to promote their work for the better part of a decade? Not us! They were getting something for free that the rest of us pay for. Those dirty, socialist loving, teat-sucking, freeloaders. What did they ever do to make our lives better?

    3. Re:Can't make it any worse... by epiphani · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The Yahoo Japan comment is interesting. Yahoo Japan is completely separate from Yahoo Inc -- Yahoo Inc owns 34% of Yahoo Japan, Softbank (A Japanese conglomerate and major telco in Japan) owns 41%. It's a completely independent, publicly traded entity, of which Verizon wouldn't even be getting a controlling or even largest shareholder position in.

      It's an odd thing, sort of like saying "we'll buy your web, oh and also a really good investment position - we'd like that too".

      Yahoo Japan is valued at ~25B USD... and Yahoo Inc is valued at ~34B USD. That would suggest that without Yahoo's 31% stake of $8.5B in YJ, Yahoo Inc would be worth less than Yahoo Japan.

      It could very well be that Verizon is buying their Yahoo Japan position and taking their web business as part of the deal, rather than the other way around.

      --
      .
    4. Re:Can't make it any worse... by rsborg · · Score: 1

      They can't make it any worse than it already is... why bid for a sinking ship?

      Are you serious? Several calls to Verizon support have disabused me of that notion. Verizon is arrogant and is a money making machine. If acquired, Yahoo will change dramatically, possibly for the better, but probably for the worse.

      --
      Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
    5. Re: Can't make it any worse... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yahoo owns a part of Alibaba. Perhaps they are going to focus on e-commerce and get rid of the more rotten parts that they are not able to fix, but which Verizon or whoever see valuable enough to get hold of.

    6. Re:Can't make it any worse... by jetkust · · Score: 2

      Believe it or not, Yahoo is still ruining their website to this day.

    7. Re:Can't make it any worse... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I wonder if Yahoo Japan is web sites by yahoos, for yahoos like the US business is.
      Yahoo Answers are generally hilariously misinformed.

    8. Re:Can't make it any worse... by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      Verizon is going after ad networks. They recently bought AOL, now they are looking at Yahoo. They can't really buy Google or Facebook, so they got the next best thing.

      Now they can identify you (and your personal data) almost anywhere you go on the web, and are preparing to take a huge chunk of the video content market, where the real money is.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    9. Re:Can't make it any worse... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yahoo Japan is valued at ~25B USD... and Yahoo Inc is valued at ~34B USD. That would suggest that without Yahoo's 31% stake of $8.5B in YJ, Yahoo Inc would be worth less than Yahoo Japan.

      And if you subtract out Yahoo's shares in Alibaba, Yahoo is worth less than nothing.

    10. Re:Can't make it any worse... by rudy_wayne · · Score: 1

      They can't make it any worse than it already is... why bid for a sinking ship?

      Are you serious? Several calls to Verizon support have disabused me of that notion. Verizon is arrogant and is a money making machine. If acquired, Yahoo will change dramatically, possibly for the better, but probably for the worse.

      I find it hard to believe that even Verizon could make Yahoo any worse than it already is. Although, in all fairness, "worse" is probably not the correct word to use. I think it would be more correct to say "How could Verizon make Yahoo even more pointless than it already is".

    11. Re:Can't make it any worse... by DerekLyons · · Score: 1

      How exactly is Yahoo! sinking? They're still making shedloads of money and have a massive userbase, even though they aren't exactly 'cool' by the standards of the digerati.

    12. Re:Can't make it any worse... by farble1670 · · Score: 1

      Because Verizon has delusions of grandeur.

      Yahoo over the last ten (?) years has gone through multiple restructuring, re-organizations, re-prioritization, etc., and failed all of them. Verizon though thinks through their managerial prowess, they'll be able to turn Yahoo into something profitable. It's narcissism in the extreme. Yahoo may not have been managed well, but Verizon? What's Verizon? A company that has succeeded due to the anti-competitive landscape of the US wireless market, and not much else.

    13. Re:Can't make it any worse... by edibobb · · Score: 1

      That's true! I just looked at yahoo.com for the first time in several years, and it's hopeless. Unbelievably bad. There is absolutely zero value in that declining portal with its huge overhead. Maybe Flickr is worth something -- it used to be -- if they haven't screwed it up beyond recognition.

    14. Re:Can't make it any worse... by evilviper · · Score: 1

      Verizon, unfortunately, is amply evil and not bumbling enough to stop themselves.

      It's only too clear that you've never dealt with Verizon... If the CEO caught fire, it would take weeks for anybody to grab an extinguisher. There are isolated islands of competence inside the beast, to be sure, but the company is so far beyond dysfunctional that I'm surprised it hasn't utterly imploded. Their rent-seeking ability, to demand insanely high prices, is the only reason they're even slightly profitable.

      --
      Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
    15. Re:Can't make it any worse... by TechyImmigrant · · Score: 1

      They can't make it any worse than it already is... why bid for a sinking ship?

      Are you serious? Several calls to Verizon support have disabused me of that notion. Verizon is arrogant and is a money making machine. If acquired, Yahoo will change dramatically, possibly for the better, but probably for the worse.

      I find it hard to believe that even Verizon could make Yahoo any worse than it already is. Although, in all fairness, "worse" is probably not the correct word to use. I think it would be more correct to say "How could Verizon make Yahoo even more pointless than it already is".

      They will force Yahoo co-branding on your next smartphone/phablet thingummy from Verizon. That is when you will cease ignoring Yahoo and start hating it.

      --
      I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
    16. Re:Can't make it any worse... by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      Yahoo was shit when AltaVista was good. That's how long it's been shit.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    17. Re:Can't make it any worse... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 1

      I've dealt with Verizon; it's just that I've also dealt with Sprint; which is to Verizon roughly what Yahoo is to Google. That re-calibrates your standards for what a competent-evil telco looks like.

    18. Re:Can't make it any worse... by Coren22 · · Score: 1

      There was a time when AltaVista was good?

      I just remember it being impossible to find anything on.

      --
      APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
    19. Re:Can't make it any worse... by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      Back in the dial-up days, yes. Their search was flexible & accurate. Then they did a redesign, tried to become a portal (still not sure what that is) and it went to crap.

      And into the gap stepped a little upstart called Google.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  2. And.. by negRo_slim · · Score: 1

    I'll never touch Yahoo! or it's affiliated web properties again. Shame that, Flickr and Tumblr have been a boon to my photography.

    --
    On the Oregon Cost born and raised, On the beach is where I spent most of my days
    1. Re:And.. by rahvin112 · · Score: 1

      No kidding. You can kiss Yahoo goodbye if verizon gets their hands on them.

    2. Re:And.. by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 1

      The Yahoo directors couldn't fight their way out of a wet paper bag with a chainsaw in each hand, so it's hard to see how it could get any worse.

      Wait, you say Verizon is going to buy it? Holy shit, prepare to hit bottom and plunge to the center of the Earth.

      --
      Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
    3. Re:And.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Most people I know are already at that point. The Yahoo website became so atrocious that it doesn't even matter how good the search results are. I had to use it recently for a fantasy hockey league at work and holy shit, it's almost AOLian. I cringe a little when I think that there are enough people using the site to keep them relevant.

      Verizon buying them might actually be, and it's hard to say this, good for the brand.

    4. Re:And.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Verizon already own AOL. So they probably want to own the set.

    5. Re:And.. by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 1

      Most people I know are already at that point. The Yahoo website became so atrocious that it doesn't even matter how good the search results are. I had to use it recently for a fantasy hockey league at work and holy shit, it's almost AOLian. I cringe a little when I think that there are enough people using the site to keep them relevant.

      Verizon buying them might actually be, and it's hard to say this, good for the brand.

      I use them for their sports content, which is very good. But Holy Jeebus on a maglev train, every other "story" is now a sponsored link.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
  3. The 44.6 billion dollar question. by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 2

    Will the offer be more or less than 44.6 billion dollars.

    --
    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
    1. Re:The 44.6 billion dollar question. by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 2
      --
      sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
    2. Re:The 44.6 billion dollar question. by rahvin112 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Even if they get 5 billion they'll have gotten more money in the long run than the microsoft purchase. At the time Microsoft offered to purchase Yahoo, they still had all the shares of Alibaba, something that ended up being sold for right around 40 Billion and distributed to shareholders. By that measure alone the Microsoft deal was severely undervalued.

    3. Re:The 44.6 billion dollar question. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The Microsoft deal was overvalued even with the premium offered for the stock at the time. Hindsight is 20/20 of course, but nobody knew Alibaba would be the gold mine it has turned out to be. Jerry Yang just didn't want to sell Yahoo, he was too emotionally connected to the company. He wasn't willing to sell for any amount, and he convinced the board to raise the price to an absurd level. The real losers all the people working the trenches. The rich just never care about them. Jerry (and Marissa, even if she is fired) will make out like bandits.

    4. Re:The 44.6 billion dollar question. by thinkwaitfast · · Score: 1

      The rich just never care about them.

      Neither do users. If users cared, they would use yahoo services more.

    5. Re:The 44.6 billion dollar question. by cheesybagel · · Score: 1

      Jerry Yang was also the guy responsible for investing in Alibaba in the first place.

      It's always interesting to see "investors" remove founders from running a company because supposedly they don't understand about management, only to watch the company being driven into the ground afterwards. But hey it happened to Steve Jobs, so why shouldn't it happen to other people.

    6. Re:The 44.6 billion dollar question. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      remove founders from running a company because supposedly they don't understand about management, only to watch the company being driven into the ground afterwards

      This reminds me of Brandon Eich and Mozilla.

  4. Me too! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I just submitted a bid for Yahoo. I offered $4.38.

    1. Re:Me too! by zlives · · Score: 1

      you beat my 3.50

    2. Re:Me too! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Your bid was a positive number?!!

  5. What happened to the last article? by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

    I was commenting on the Devops Is Dead article when it disappeared. Was this article so embarrassingly bad that the Slashdot editors felt embarrassed enough to pull the article?

    1. Re:What happened to the last article? by whipslash · · Score: 1

      Had some unicode issues. It's back now

    2. Re:What happened to the last article? by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      Had some unicode issues. It's back now.

      Python 3 has native support for Unicode, so stop using Python 2. ;)

    3. Re:What happened to the last article? by jmcvetta · · Score: 1

      Afaik Slashdot is written in Perl.

    4. Re:What happened to the last article? by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      Afaik Slashdot is written in Perl.

      You would think after all these years that the Slashdot plumbing would have gotten rewritten into a modern language.

  6. I'm curious.... by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'm curious....what kind of head injuries do the people at Verizon have, anyway?

    It's like they all got together and said, "We have a shitload of money...how can we flush it down a toilet to best effect?"

    --
    Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
    1. Re:I'm curious.... by MobileTatsu-NJG · · Score: 2

      Verizon wants to own web services they can zero-rate the data on.

      --

      "I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)

    2. Re:I'm curious.... by inode_buddha · · Score: 1

      flushing money down the toilet can be a good strategy for tax purposes if nothing else

      --
      C|N>K
    3. Re:I'm curious.... by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 1

      flushing money down the toilet can be a good strategy for tax purposes if nothing else

      My philosophy on getting rid of unwanted money boils down to "hookers and blow". It's been pretty damn effective so far.

      --
      Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
  7. What's the benefit to Google? by Streetlight · · Score: 1

    I can't see much benefit owning Yahoo! would be to Google. Many of Yahoo!'s features would likely be shut down such as mail and the home page. Google has mail, probably the most used web mail app on the planet and would transfer Yahoo! mail users to Gmail. Yahoo!'s home page consisting of horrible click bait links is pretty bad and there's already Google News. (Google should bring back Google Reader.) One thing I find much more useful is Yahoo!'s financial sites particularly it's portfolio management. Google's feature is cumbersome and hard to use so that would be a gain for Google. I can't see much else of use for Google. They'd get Marissa back but she might be damaged goods.

    --
    In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. George Orwell
    1. Re:What's the benefit to Google? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But instead of adopting the good Yahoo finance site as a replacement for their current one, they'd shut it down.

    2. Re:What's the benefit to Google? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Social responsibility to clean the environment?

      All of Yahoo's services are inferior and redundant to Google's. Google is quite good at shutting down non-productive services and focusing on those that are productive.

    3. Re:What's the benefit to Google? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There are three big bonuses for Google I can see. First is to help solidify their place with Gmail. I know many older people who use Yahoo mail out of pure momentum and I also know many businesses that use yahoo mail servers either on purpose or because their host outsources to them.

      Second is Yahoo finance. I know many people who use that and it is my goto source for financial figures.

      Third is actually a benefit for the rest of the world too and that is the ad traffic. Google makes there money from ads and more eyeballs means more money. That is also a benefit for the rest of us in that Yahoo is notorious for their malvertising and Google might help clean that up.

  8. Good luck with that by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    shit + shit != gold

    1. Re:Good luck with that by dejitaru · · Score: 1

      Unless you're a farmer

    2. Re:Good luck with that by Streetlight · · Score: 1

      Unless you're a farmer

      ... growing potatoes on Mars.

      --
      In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. George Orwell
  9. No, because quality of service is no longer by waspleg · · Score: 2

    a priority. It's how many people can you harvest data from. Remember, Verizon is home of the Super Cookie. Now, most Yahoo users are using it because they're probably used to it (i.e. elderly) and/or they don't know how to change their default Firefox search.

    It's a whole new world of spying and tying that across the phone they might already have bugged means some more Google style multi-angle fuckery. It means they can set Yahoo as the default search on their phones and get ad revenue for the spying they're already doing too. It makes sense if you assume people are stupid (most are), the market has limited choices (it does), and you make more money from B2B than from your plebian "customers" who will *pay you* to be spied on.

    1. Re:No, because quality of service is no longer by farble1670 · · Score: 1

      It makes sense if you assume people are stupid (most are)

      Thank god for people like you. How can I elect you my leader?

  10. Marissa by Grindalf · · Score: 1

    Marissa used to work for Google Maps. Hmmm ...

    --
    The purpose of existence is to make money.
  11. Yahoo is dead by drew_92123 · · Score: 1

    And they have been for a long time...

  12. Corporate Soviet Russia by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Someday we will have just a few corporations, and they will be the state.

    1. Re:Corporate Soviet Russia by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The future is already here, it's just not evenly distributed.

  13. Shit... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Now I'll have to get rid of my @sbcglobal.net email.

  14. Yahoo is worth $34B with Marissa Mayer by JoeyRox · · Score: 0

    And $40B without her.

    1. Re:Yahoo is worth $34B with Marissa Mayer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In all fairness, Yahoo was already fucked before clueless Marissa got there. Yahoo is so completely irrelevant it's highly unlikely that anyone can turn it around.

    2. Re:Yahoo is worth $34B with Marissa Mayer by farble1670 · · Score: 1

      In all fairness, Yahoo was already fucked before clueless Marissa got there. Yahoo is so completely irrelevant it's highly unlikely that anyone can turn it around.

      Yeah it was f'ed, but she was paid a shit-ton of money based on the assumption she could do something about it. It's not like no-harm no-foul here. The foul is that they heavily compensated her for an ultimate failure.

  15. Yahoo sold-out a long time ago by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Back around 2004 i think i bought a IDT Winchip2 on Yahoo Auctions, which is an authentic legally binding auction unlike others that have legally directed their registrants outside of auction-appealing conduct. It was rumoured that Yahoo Auctions was brought a C'n'D by ebay for having composed their post-auction transaction process simillarly to their own. That got Yahoo Auctions post-poned and haulted yet remaining accessible to existing accounts. It was a leaner html cgi programming than eBay, fast as Craigslist, and it buckled while the likes of uBid and Haggle and BidNow or whatever continued in some way even after their own eBay encounters. Yahoo Auctions only proved that it lacked a soul to strive for anything. It was just a roulette wheel turn by it's own members: like when eBay was 250 employees maximum but now a behemoth slut for its own "star" members to generate resale tax revenue with server api's to accomodate those assessments by the pre-approved regulatory pimps that exceeded their jurisdictional pervue.

  16. traffic attractant schemes. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I will add that I could see Yahoo as recessively expressing itself as having competing services awaiting export. Geocitied should have been resourced into an encyclopedia format competitive to wikipedia rather than shutdown. But isnt that just Yahoo? Now isnt it? Ready to just shutdown or delegate prior powers like a defunct country? DHS procedures shat down so many chat protocols, why stop at nntp and gnutella? No legalbackbone whatsoever. It was a mainland china goobermint that requested detailed logs and accounting for any range of Yahoo account registrants that proxied traceably into other countries from China and that was the death of those. Not one bit of credability from Yahoo to to justify such intrusion of privacy or even simulated privacy. Yahoo became the equivalent of IBM durting World War 2 yet people continue to patronize that.

  17. I hope Congress stops this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Verizon has already bought AOL, and some other web properties. Verizon is a communications company, ie, running hardware. Yahoo is more like a TV studio, a completely different industry. I don't see any synergies. This is irresponsible on the part of Verizon. They should be reinvesting in communications (Fios?). Maybe they should be regulated....

  18. Why would VZ bid? No Apple??? by JCPayne · · Score: 1

    Verizon has been shrinking in recent years because they can't manage everything they own. Sold off Dominican Republic, Venezuela, and most of New England was sold off and they turn over more and more of the former Bell Atlantic / NYNEX region to FairPoint Communications. They've stalled FIOS rolled out and New England areas are exploring more municipal broadband to shake off Verizon's slow speeds since FiOS expansion is done. WHY would Verizon waste more time on content when they're soo badd at it? They even let Yahoo manage their content at http://verizon.yahoo.com/ On the other hand, Apple would be a BETTER company for Yahoo.APPLE could turn YAHOO around. Just look, Apple has a browser Safari. They can integrate more of Yahoo around Safari. Apple also owns no search engine BUT has search technology SIRI. They can revamp Yahoo! Search (which is a bit outdated), from the ground up and integrate SIRI into it. Not only that, they could make this revamped Yahoo/Apple/SIRI search as the default for Safari. This means the Yahoo ads network would also become more valuable as this would bring more value to the acquired Yahoo asset they bought. Note- Apple could probably do all this alone but Yahoo is literally a turn-key opportunity for more eyeballs. It has Yahoo News, it has Yahoo Widgets and all those staff member's therein can be put to work building widgets for Apple Watches, iPhone, and Apple TV and rebranding Yahoo-TV as Apple TV and so on. Yahoo's radio/broadcast app business can also be re-purposed for Apple iTunes /Beats content. This ads network could be Apples, they could pick apart Yahoo Search and redevelop it brand new with SIRI integrated. They could merge the Yahoo TV business/Yahoo widgets with Apple TV, plus Yahoo has an Internet Service with Verizon, British Telecom, AT&T, and Rogers Cable that Apple could earn revenue from. And they'd have content with customers. PLUS Yahoo messenger could be rehabbed completely and made into an Apple messenger.