Do or die time for Yahoo

Most “experts” find it hard to believe that this deal is going to go through. I believe it will…eventually. Microsoft’s offer is now worth just $40 billion (according to Microsoft’s closing share price as of 2/19/08), down from the original offer of $44.6 billion. Yahoo Inc. should have taken the deal when it was first offered, and now they are going to lose out on billions of dollars. The takeover will happen, it’s just a matter of time. Microsoft plans on going straight to the Yahoo shareholders, bypassing the board of directors who rejected the first offer, and Microsoft CEO Bill Gates has said Microsoft will not increase its offer. Once Yahoo realizes that, they will have nothing else to do but sell. Microsoft does not need to instigate a hostile takeover. They just need to be patient because the deal will get done. From what I have read, Microsoft shareholders are already astonished at the offer Microsoft originally laid out, and they believe Microsoft will be overpaying for Yahoo. I believe that Microsoft’s original offer was more than enough, and Yahoo should not rely on a better offer from another corporation or from Microsoft itself. Also, with Yahoo’s board of directors all up for re-election this spring, this makes for the best deal possible for both companies. I believe Yahoo should take the money and run with it, because they are just delaying the inevitable…

Most “experts” find it hard to believe that this deal is going to go through. I believe it will…eventually. Microsoft’s offer is now worth just $40 billion (according to Microsoft’s closing share price as of 2/19/08), down from the original offer of $44.6 billion. Yahoo Inc. should have taken the deal when it was first offered, and now they are going to lose out on billions of dollars. The takeover will happen, it’s just a matter of time. Microsoft plans on going straight to the Yahoo shareholders, bypassing the board of directors who rejected the first offer, and Microsoft CEO Bill Gates has said Microsoft will not increase its offer. Once Yahoo realizes that, they will have nothing else to do but sell. Microsoft does not need to instigate a hostile takeover. They just need to be patient because the deal will get done. From what I have read, Microsoft shareholders are already astonished at the offer Microsoft originally laid out, and they believe Microsoft will be overpaying for Yahoo. I believe that Microsoft’s original offer was more than enough, and Yahoo should not rely on a better offer from another corporation or from Microsoft itself. Also, with Yahoo’s board of directors all up for re-election this spring, this makes for the best deal possible for both companies. I believe Yahoo should take the money and run with it, because they are just delaying the inevitable.

I do not understand what all these people who call themselves “experts” are talking about. Microsoft has very little to gain from this. Yahoo is just a footnote compared to Google… so Microsoft + Yahoo would be nothing more than a slightly bigger footnote.

What is Microsoft going to do with Yahoo anyway? You can’t tell me Yahoo’s senior folks would be at all pleased about this. Most of them would be long gone before any deal is finalized. Yahoo has its entire back end infrastructure centered around non-microsoft technologies, would Microsoft plan to re-engineer the whole thing like they did with hotmail? We all know how well that worked for them. They took the #1 mail service and ran it directly into the ground.

They wouldn’t be well equipped to let Yahoo continue independently either since most of the intellectual capital from the original company will have jumped ship and Microsoft has very few people in it’s current organization who would have the first clue how to run a Search/Internet company (evidenced by the fact that MSN is a pathetic excuse, hence the need to go after Yahoo).

This whole drama has disaster written all over it.

Yahoo just spent millions on search enhancements that are just beginning to pay off. It takes time for people to catch on. It’s only been a year since the release of the predicitve drop down (love that thing) and the results are now as good as google’s. If the shareholders could just hang on for a year or so I think they’d be glad they did.

I do not agree with your assessment. Yahoo has options. Actually, before anything else, MSFT should up its offer. If it is right, then all should be satisfied.

What I don’t understand is why all of these editorials continue to ignore the obvious—Microsoft should consider themselves lucky that Yahoo declined the initial offer and walk away. The fact is Microsoft, like Yahoo, has not been given enough time to prove their online strategies but instead, listens to the no-nothings in the media for direction on their online strategies. Yahoo has some valuable assets—but they are not worth anywhere near the $44 billion Microsoft is offering—at least not to Microsoft.

The bottom line is Microsoft needs to stop listening to the media and other pundits and just continue building great software. Thre is nothing wrong with making selective small buys, but buying Yahoo will go down in the textbooks as one of the greatest disaster buys in the history of corporate acquisition if by some chance Microsoft is dumb enough to continue with this acquisition strategy.