Microsoft gives up bid for Yahoo

A shotgun marriage that appeared to be boiling up eventually fizzled out. We are talking about Microsoft's ongoing three-month flirting with Yahoo. Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer, according to the BBC website news, had formally pulled back the $47.5bn offer to buy Internet company Yahoo. The main reason was that the two parties could not agree on an acceptable sale price.

The Seattle company that dominates PC usage with its Windows operating system was rebuffed by Yahoo chief executive Jerry Yang who had insisted on at least $53bn or $37 a share before any deal could be closed.

Microsoft had earlier offered to buy Yahoo at $44.6bn but raised the offer to $47.5bn at $33 per share - but, obviously, Yahoo was not keen to take the bait and instead demanded more.

The lucrative Internet advertising market was worth $40bn in 2007 and is predicted to double to $80bn by 2010. Microsoft has been looking for a good buyout as it seeks to counter the dominance of Google in Internet advertising.

According to the BBC's Peter Bowes, analysts believe the breakdown in talks may have an adverse affect on Yahoo shares and generate uncertainty among investors about the company's management.

Can Jerry Yang Turn Around Troubled Yahoo?

Jerry Yang: Taking the reins

Come to think of it, people don't "yahoo" for something on the Internet, instead they "google" for something on the Net.

That just about sums up why Yahoo is playing second fiddle to Google.

That's why Yahoo chief executive Terry Semel has been axed for not being able to take the company, founded by Jerry Yang and fellow-student David Filo 13 years ago, to the next level.

So now former Stanford University undergraduate student Jerry is taking over as CEO. The company has a reported turnover of $3.2b.

It has 12,000 employees on its payroll and its Internet portal attracts more than 500 million users.

But still, Yahoo is just an also-ran compared to Google, the market leader with sales that's 50% higher and its profits four times that of its older rival.


Semel: Dismissed

Where Semel has failed thus far, the question being asked in the industry is: Can the 38-year-old Yang pull all the stops and revitalize Yahoo?


Related article:
Can Yahoo revive its digital dreams?
(An analysis by Tim Webber, Business editor, BBC News website)

And Now Yahoo Buy MyBlogLog

Social networking was the main talking point last year with the acquisitions of MySpace by Rupert Murdoch and YouTube by Google. It looks like it's not going to end there.

Yahoo continues the acquisition story with the announcement on Jan 8 that it has bought the popular community site MyBlogLog. Yahoo's latest purchase followed a strings of acquisitions of other social networking sites that includes Del.icio.us, Flickr and Upcoming.

MyBlogLog, founded in 2005, enables registered users to form communities and provide them with online tools to create a profile and associate it with their blogs.

"If blogging was originally about building a community and having a conversation with people in that community, then MyBlogLog provides the missing link that makes those connections more real," Chad Dickerson, senior director of Yahoo Developer Network, said in a company blog announcing the deal.

> The jig is up - MyBlogLog joins Yahoo!