Yahoo! not so hot for Microsoft's initial bid, plans to reject

We're fairly certain we haven't heard the last of this Microsoft offer to buy Yahoo! -- or Google's plans to intervene -- but it looks like round one has Yahoo! saying "no thanks" to Microsoft's $44.6 billion buyout offer. Apparently some of the number crunchers inside Yahoo! feel like the number is too low of a valuation, while others want to get tied up with Google to improve search revenues -- which some seem to think might have some antitrust implications. Pah, "antitrust implications." At least Microsoft remembers when men were men, and monopolies were monopolies.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

[Bassir @ Feb 9th 2008 3:18PM]

Pretty smart if they do.

[David Clark @ Feb 9th 2008 4:11PM]

They're doing Microsoft a favor. The only decent thing about yahoo is their messenger service, and even that went to crap. They went down the same awful path as AIM.

[Eric M. @ Feb 9th 2008 4:22PM]

@ David

I think that the only thing Yahoo! has to offer at this point is their Yahoo! Answers. That is the only thing I use Yahoo for now.

[caleb @ Feb 9th 2008 4:57PM]

flickr

[Ireland @ Feb 9th 2008 5:54PM]

It's funny when people forget flickr, the fact that Yahoo currently have the no.1 most popular homepage on the "whole internet", and the most popular web email app too: http://www.alexa.com/site/ds/top_sites?ts_mode=global&lang=none

Monopoly or not I'd prefer Google have the monopoly than Microsoft any day.

[roach @ Feb 9th 2008 6:29PM]

Ireland

Even if MS buys Yahoo, Google still have monopoly. Frankly, Google scares me. Check out:
http://www.masterplanthemovie.com/

[Ireland @ Feb 9th 2008 6:38PM]

Yeah roach, that movie was funded by M$ by the way :P

[Le Master @ Feb 9th 2008 6:40PM]

Yahoo! Search is my new best friend. I refuse to go back to Google.

[Mike10010100 @ Feb 9th 2008 9:49PM]

I find it funny that people give props to google for doing what's supposed to be done right all along. The same happens in some of my classes. My chem teacher refuses to say "good job" to someone for doing what they were supposed to be doing already.

Google (the search engine) isn't doing anything new, but is doing what should have been done from the beginning of the internet; it's creating the easiest, most user friendly, and fastest way to search the internet, while giving advanced users the power to look at individual websites and search.

I, however, am not my chem teacher. Good job, Google. Good job.

[tubes @ Feb 10th 2008 3:33AM]

@ Ireland:
Actually, I'd prefer NO company to have a monopoly at all. No one! Competition FTW all the way. After all, we once trusted Microsoft the same as we trust Google now. It's best to keep the companies in check while you can. The last thing I want is another MS of the web.

[Cellenin @ Feb 9th 2008 3:21PM]

Yahoo is not worth $44.6 billion! All Micrsoft has to do is sit back and watch as yahoo goes down the drain over the coming months.

[Khattab @ Feb 9th 2008 3:33PM]

Exactly my opinion! Yahoo claims to be worth 60 (!) Billion $ - at least. Insane.

[Homeboy @ Feb 9th 2008 3:41PM]

Yahoo is not worth that much to you or any random company, but for Microsoft and Google it is because having Yahoo in their portfolio increases their market share dramatically. Yahoo are aware of that fact which is why they might play hard to get.

[Pentium @ Feb 10th 2008 6:47AM]

That's exactly what I'm thinking :)

[Karl Viklund @ Feb 9th 2008 3:24PM]

http://blogs.zdnet.com/ip-telephony/?p=3193

[Gremlin @ Feb 9th 2008 3:34PM]

While theres way too much strategy in these moves to say anything definitively, I think this is a REALLY bad move on Yahoo's behalf. They were valued at 18 and dropping when Microsoft bid on them, and if they officially lose Microsoft's interest, then their stock will only plummet further. Yahoo and Microsoft seems like a great fit for a great price to me.

The shareholders are gonna be pissed!

[hp540 @ Feb 9th 2008 6:11PM]

time to short yahoo shares!

[Abuzar @ Feb 9th 2008 6:42PM]

My uncle just sold about 50G of Yahoo shares, or so he claims. He also claims to have made about 16G in profits.

Time to sell!

[Steve @ Feb 11th 2008 2:57AM]

Time to buy google shares!

[Neil @ Feb 9th 2008 3:35PM]

I hope Microsoft announces they're walking away from this deal.....the second they do you can bet Yahoos stock will drop like a rock and Yahoo's shareholders will force the deal to go through (if MS still wants Yahoo at that point).

[Eros @ Feb 9th 2008 3:39PM]

Report: Yahoo will reject Microsoft bid.
Translation: Yahoo desperately hoping Microsoft will raise bid.

[Dylan K @ Feb 9th 2008 3:41PM]

What Microsoft does not know is that Mr. Jeeves threw in a bid of 60 billion.

[John @ Feb 9th 2008 3:42PM]

Yahoo!'s market cap was about 26 billion prior to the offer... and they think that 44.6 was low?

[TheGuy @ Feb 9th 2008 3:43PM]

Two words: HOSTILE TAKEOVER!!!

Considering how much Yahoo's board has already driven this company into the ground, I'm pretty sure most shareholders have lost confidence in them and will accept any premium offer they can get.

[giantenemycrab @ Feb 9th 2008 3:49PM]

Yahoooo!!

[Mike Bentley @ Feb 9th 2008 3:49PM]

Take a good look at the offer details. It is a mix of assets, the value for which changed (that is, dropped) since the offer was presented.

[David @ Feb 9th 2008 3:49PM]

What happens to Yahoo Messenger if Microsoft gets ahold of Yahoo???

[michael @ Feb 9th 2008 4:11PM]

Maybe:

1. Status message (like Twitter)
2. A TON more games (that actually work well)
3. Sharing folders
4. More skin customizations
5. A ton more add-ons supported
6. Doodle input - draw stuff with your cursor/pen and send
7. Faster load time - loads faster than Y! to me
8. Xbox LIVE integration
9. More sharper webcam chats and more supported webcams
10. You can also save the world, considering every time you IM on WLM (with a special code of an organization of your choice), a portion of the messengers' ad revenue goes to helping an organization of your choice - http://im.live.com/

That's just some of the stuff I've been enjoying on WLM. I'm comparing this to Y! Messenger 8.1.0.209. (both on XP SP2)

Not trying to gloat here, but cool stuff like that could be on Y! Messenger in the future. As far as I know, that stuff isn't available.

[Carbonize @ Feb 9th 2008 5:24PM]

Michael Yahoo messenger already has a sharing folder (unless they have stopped it since I used it), has skin customisation and add ons, had a doodle input for years before MSN did, sharp webcam IF doing it peer to peer.

MS messy loads fgaster for the same reason IE does, some of it is always running in Windows.

[hotwings1 @ Feb 9th 2008 9:19PM]

I like your user picture, is that a turbo? I'm a car nut.

[Tim @ Feb 9th 2008 3:50PM]

The last thing I want to see is more of Microsoft... I hope Yahoo! holds out - even though Yahoo! sucks as much as Microsoft.

[ByronGman @ Feb 9th 2008 4:28PM]

What is the point if Yahoo sucks as bad as Microsoft?


... and MS isn't as bad as Yahoo. I meant I've actually used and enjoyed some of MS's products in the past few years.... the last thing I used yahoo for was to look at the comics on their news page... and that was awhile ago...

[Reader @ Feb 9th 2008 4:42PM]

2 sucks might make a non-suck?

[Steffen Jobbs @ Feb 9th 2008 3:51PM]

Yahoo is gonna try to milk as much money as they can from as prospective buyer. It was down as low as about $20, now they think they're worth double that. Good for them. I'd have loved to have been an investor waiting to get a fat bucks reprieve after my stock had tanked. I only hope Yahoo's greed doesn't backfire on them.

[michael @ Feb 9th 2008 3:52PM]

Even though some people may be happy about Y! and MS not going together, I was kinda disappointed.

Both Y! and Microsoft have some neat web services and content, and I was hoping that the best of both worlds could collide. You know, like:

Best of Y! + Best of WinLive/MSN = One great super web services/content place

And for those who think Y! going to Microsoft means all the good stuff from Y! dying, that's ridiculous. If I bought a company for LOTS of money, the last thing I would do would be to just destroy it up and watch the whole user base scatter away. I'm quite sure Microsoft understands the impact it might have if they buy Y!, and making a big mistake on such a big deal won't go good in history.

At the same time, mergers might also mean more features, a cut-down on pro/plus fees, and a wider base to choose from. I was REALLY hoping for a cut-down on Flickr service fees.

And monopolies on the web? Come on. There's a bazillion choices on the web. Nobody forces you to choose one. If they happen to be popular and more widely used, obviously they have something people want to use.

Oh well. Maybe better luck next time.

[davher @ Feb 9th 2008 3:59PM]

Why do you spell Yahoo, Y!, yet you seem to be capable of spelling Microsoft correctly?

[michael @ Feb 9th 2008 4:09PM]

@davher:

So you want me to spell out Yahoo! everytime, and read that? I'm a pretty fast typer, but I found it more convenient to short Yahoo! to just simply Y!. It's not like Y! itself doesn't show that icon on their webpages.

If Yahoo! can shorten it that way, why can't I?

[nh @ Feb 9th 2008 5:04PM]

He does use 'MS'.

Anyway, a far bigger issue is that Yahoo! is spelled with an exclamation mark, wreaking havoc with your internal monologue and rendering almost every sentence gramatically incorrect.

The town of Westward Ho! is plagued by the same problem.

[Cris @ Feb 9th 2008 3:56PM]

I think is a really sad day for humankind when these are the numbers at play in the business world (46 billion)... wake up people... multimedia services are fantastic when you have people to use them and a planet for those users to live on. Go plant a tree, call a friend, walk by the river, get a dog, do whatever but keep things in perspective.

anti-flame suit is on... peace

[John @ Feb 9th 2008 4:37PM]

That's actually a really good point. In the end, Yahoo! and the rest of the Internet are nothing more than a bunch of excited electrons in interesting patterns, yet they're worth more than the average human being. Crazy.

[Sauerkraut @ Feb 9th 2008 4:43PM]

hahah that's such a funny picture

[Josh L @ Feb 9th 2008 4:51PM]

"...Yahoo! and the rest of the Internet are nothing more than a bunch of excited electrons in interesting patterns, yet they're worth more than the average human being."

That is a pretty narrow view. The Internet and Yahoo! (or any corporation) are hundreds or thousands (millions in the case of the internet) of people working together. Of course they are worth more than the "average human"; do you go to the grocery and cry because a bag of apples is worth more than a single apple?

[Markus @ Feb 9th 2008 5:10PM]

That picture still makes me laugh. "Hay guys give me some room!"

[dave @ Feb 9th 2008 5:41PM]

it would be awesome if google paid them to delete themselves. yahoo search is a cluttered piece of crap second only to ask, and more importantly of all the companies in the world google is the one i would most like to establish a monopoly in its field. its just one of those companies that does you a great service for free. in that respect its kind of like a charitable organisation doing less important work on a larger scale. i hope that one day we can bow down to google and allow them to create a socialist world republic in which all internets are free and all pedophiles are shot without trial and microsoft gets nuked.

a man can dream...

[Alex R @ Feb 9th 2008 5:53PM]

How is Yahoo worth anywhere between $44.6-$60 billion? I have no recollection of EVER saerching for anything on Yahoo!, or ever using it's services.

[Jamar @ Feb 10th 2008 11:25AM]

Mostly it comes from Yahoo Japan, I think. Japan's the only country where Yahoo Auctions has beat eBay out of business. Seriously, Yahoo Japan is everything Yahoo America should be, and that's why I want Softbank (Part-owner of Yahoo Japan) to take over Yahoo instead of Microsoft. Then Yahoo Broadband will actually be worth using (can you say 100M symmetric?), Yahoo will be worth using, and Softbank will do more stuff in America (say hello to nice phones that put anything in AT&T's lineup to shame). Win-win.

[crescentdavid @ Feb 9th 2008 5:59PM]

I've begun to use a lot of Live services, but I still have Yahoo as a heavily customized start page. It's definitely a cut above MSN.

[hotwings1 @ Feb 9th 2008 10:02PM]

Upon the topic of Microsoft not buying Yahoo!, how about starting off with a nice big "Yahooooo!!" complete with a red capital Y and a smiley face on crack to celebrate. But seriously folks, $60 billion for Yahoo? Sadly no. Hell that's almost a third of Mr. Gates cash, oh wait, he doesn't work there anymore. It almost sucked to be you Steve Ballmer.

[BIg Al @ Feb 10th 2008 8:53AM]

Does Yahoo even make a profit?

[Stephen Garriques @ Feb 10th 2008 12:33PM]

Yahoo has more than just their search engine, They bought Zimbra which is the leading Microsoft Exchange Alternative in the market / www.zimbra.com