I want to take a minute to go over all the hooplah that’s hit the web this since I last posted on the Yahoo/Microsoft deal.
Let’s start with some hard facts before moving into complete speculation: Yahoo turned down Microsoft’s $31/share, $44B offer. They countered with a statement requesting $40/share, valued at a $12B increase. Yahoo has since fired an additional 1,000 employees. And as far as I know- those are the only “facts” out there right now. The rest is just crazy rumors and outrageous claims (potentially made to boost reader commission from Valleywag’s writers’ pay-grade… but that too is just a rumor… that I made up.)
Now that the facts are out of the way- let’s go over the rumors (one that I like, one that I despise).
- Google wants to buy Yahoo
- This would help Google completely monopolize the search market, which is basically the bulk of the web these days…
- Leaving MS in the dust online, letting them own the dying market of desktop applications/OSes
- Capitalize on the largest webmail client, making all of Yahoo’s users into Google users
- Stealing the Instant Message market from AOL (the only thing they have left), to take a stab at Facebook in the battle for the social web
- Flickr + Picassa = awesome online photo sharing.
- Yahoo might merge with AOL (the single dumbest rumor I’ve ever heard- and if this proves true then I’ll write a post every day for two weeks that includes an emoticon)
- This would be like the last two dinosaurs on earth attempting to mate, only to learn that the plague wiping out their species has already killed off their reproductive organs.
- This blog post, which I quite literally laughed out loud at.
- Sure AOL would pick up Yahoo’s email users and Yahoo would pick up AOL’s inexplicable user-base, but for what?
- One real positive: Instant Messaging would be dominated by the two… oh wait, that’s all possible through web-apps and facebook.
- That’s all I’ve got.
Ok, now what does this all mean? Well somehow, Yahoo thinks it is worth $56,000,000,000.00 even though most analysts were surprised it got a $44B bid in the first place. Microsoft is now rumored to be planning a “hostile takeover” and you know what? Good for them. I understand that Yahoo’s board got all excited with all this hype around them- but without MS’s bid in there, Yahoo’s stock would have been sitting in the dumps of tankville.
Here’s what should happen: MS should come back with $33/share and firm handshake agreement not to scrap some of Yahoo’s good assets. Yahoo should be happy to take it and they’ll actually work together to build an awesome future online.
Here’s what will probably happen: MS will pay more than they want ($35+/share) and just start tossing out excess baggage, which to a behemoth like Microsoft, is a lot.
I’ll leave this topic on a funny note. This page of tips for “Laid off? So what?” and this one on how to “Bulletproof Yourself Against a Layoff“, both found on Yahoo’s job site, HotJobs…
