More Yahoo!, Google And Microsoft Chatter
Enough already!
The Yahoo!-Microsoft imbroglio seems to have gone through an extended gestation period. It’s high time we heard of the birth of a new entity. All the expectations are justified, at least with all the attention the whole affair has been receiving, and the limbo it has been over the past nine odd months!
It all started close to a year ago with Microsoft pitching in to buy-out Yahoo!. Steve Ballmer and Jerry Wang were in the news. At times the stock price was the debate, while in the recent past, Google entered the limelight. There were talks of Google entering a deal with Yahoo! to offset Microsoft from gaining hold of the online marketing business.
However, as per recent reports, Google and Yahoo! have decided to put the online advertising deal on hold. This was announced by both, Yahoo! and Google in a recent statement, after deciding to wait for responses from the Department of Justice. Microsoft was quick to take advantage of the situation and go ahead and announce that the online deal with Yahoo! is still sensible, despite what happened and that it may still be possible.
Ballmer also said that the two companies are not currently negotiating, ever since talks fell apart in July. In May, Yahoo! had rejected a $33-per share offer that amounted to $47.5 billion, with a reason that the company was worth much more than said figure. However, this was the case before Wall Street crashed and burned, as a result of the global financial crunch.
However, in the current scenario, the impact on Yahoo! share prices is being closely studied by Microsoft. Ballmer has already hinted that they expect to see opportunities to have a partnership later. The impact of failed talks has been graver on Yahoo! than it has been on Microsoft. Share prices have fallen to a five-and-half-year low of $11.37. Perhaps that $33 per share offer wasn’t so bad, was it Jerry? As for the rest of the world, we’ve just had enough. Will someone please buy someone else and end all this speculation?