Microsoft planning to buy Yahoo!

[kvish]

Guess what, Microsoft plans to pocket yahoo for 44Billion!! Thats just 1,60,000 crores !!

Microsoft offers to buy Yahoo! for $44.6 billion

[reignofchaos]

Wow! So cheap it is eh .

[bigman]

I fail to see any upside in this takeover especailly at such a premium price. Yahoo are a failing brand who have been destroyed by Google.

Their advertising reveue is no where as close to that of Google. When was the last time anyone used Yahoo to do a search ? I can honestly say it was 5 years ago.

Their business is not unique and can easily be replicated. Their search engine is one of the worst around. It was good in the 1990s as there was no alternative but with the advent of altavista (remember that one), hotbot, excite, lycos etc etc they were on the slippery slope.

[amohit]

dont know much abt how yahoo's business is doing...
but 2 things i know for sure...
1. They pay very handsomely &
2. The "I quotient" in yahoo is pretty gud

[Ramesh75]

It's huge amount for a dead company.

[BaCkSeAtDrIVeR]

Originally Posted by bigman

I fail to see any upside in this takeover especailly at such a premium price. Yahoo are a failing brand who have been destroyed by Google.

Who cares? M$$$$$ will take care fo that.

Their advertising reveue is no where as close to that of Google. When was the last time anyone used Yahoo to do a search ? I can honestly say it was 5 years ago.

That will be Hi$tory now. Google gets the ads because they get the hits. They get the hits because their pages display properly in every browser. Since more than 80% of people of MS' IE browser, the browser will ensure that Google's ads are not at the proper place where they ought to. Or probably, some better bug/feature.

Their business is not unique and can easily be replicated. Their search engine is one of the worst around. It was good in the 1990s as there was no alternative but with the advent of altavista (remember that one), hotbot, excite, lycos etc etc they were on the slippery slope.

See above. Buddy, this is business. In business, it is the better marketed (err.. the only available) product that wins. There is no assurance that better product will win.

[csentil]

Yahoo is a great company. Sadly they did not believe in Google's business model and chose otherwise. The result was declining profits and cost cutting. The problem with yahoo was I think complacency. They were the No. 1 search engine for quite sometime beating Northern Lights, Lycos & AltaVista. Yahoo Messenger and yahoo mail were doing really well. Many found yahoo mail far better than hotmail which had become too slow and spam ridden after MS takeover.

However Google swept everyone out and caught MS unawares. MS is still playing catch up. How strange for MS to be in a position that they are not used to. They usually run roughshod over their competitors( Ex. Poor Netscape closed business y'day, after being killed off by IE)

Now MS wants to catch up and the best way is to buy up one of the competitors. I think Yahoo should sell. Coz there's no way they are going to compete with Google and MS. But paying such a high premium for Yahoo is surprising. Probably MS wants to make sure that Yahoo doesn't slip away. Could be bad times for MS if this goes through.

[BaCkSeAtDrIVeR]

Y! has an excellent finance site. There are graphs for technical analysis. Google groups too has a similar site. Only problem - the graphs come from Y!. With M$ in the pic, this will surely stop. Btw, CNBC is part owned by M$, right??

[HappyWheels]

there were talks about this almost 6~8 months back; but both Yahoo and MS were quick to decline this and called this a figment of imagination! but now!!!

man, these people are impossible. they look in your eyes and lie!

not that this makes much of a difference, but I guess if the news was validated, then Yahoo stock would have sky rocketed! Now MS is paying 52~62% more than the actual value for Yahoo stocks.

having said that, lets hope this works out good for MS. they are trying everything in the book to beat Google.

[bigman]

Does anyone remember Yahoo Auctions ? They were a good alternative to ebay but Yahoo pulled the plug after a few years.

I am surprised google have not had a go at starting an auction site to offer users an alternative to ebay.

[BaCkSeAtDrIVeR]

I know this is getting plenty of attention on the blogosphere, but here is something which got my attention - in particular, the image at bottom of the post.

Microsoft & Yahoo - Yep, We Can Say Goodbye to Both « TWO A DAY

And some interesting quotes:-

Some brick & mortar stores get customers coming back merely because it’s convenient and others get customers by buying up all the competition or by driving them out of business.

No, Apple is not going to buy Yahoo. Apple could fling open the doors of .Mac and replicate most of the features of Yahoo - no need to spend $45 billion to buy a LESSER name. While the name Yahoo is nice, other than maybe one of the Chinese search engines coming on board or maybe India’s Tata who will buy nearly anyone … no, there really aren’t a lot of suitors because Yahoo is a unique brand who’s main appeal is that it’s not MS or Google.

Huh?? Why bring Tatas into this?? Have they created so much ripples?

[deadman]

After yahoo Microsoft will by google? like indian baazee sold to ebay.....and became ebay.in

[snaronikar]

I read that Google is putting a snapper on the plans of this take over. I feel they fear Microsoft comboined with Yahoo will become no.1 search engine. But wahtever it is, it will be good for users.

[ST7677]

MS won;t be able to do much with Yahoo included....

The big mega project of MS LIVE search could not compete with Google and not sure what MS can acheive together with Yahoo!


I hate Yahoo mail, the screen is so cluttered, they don;t even show your inbox on logging in :(

[amohit]

Originally Posted by ST7677

I hate Yahoo mail, the screen is so cluttered, they don;t even show your inbox on logging in :(

switch to gmail...its much better