Microsoft Offers $44.6B for Yahoo

[Phait]

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080201/microsoft_yahoo.html

DO NOT WANT.

After Yahoo/Microsoft teaming up to let Yahoo Messenger also support MSN IM service, this offer seems like something even 8IronBob could've speculated :o

Also I'm curious what Rasmus Lerdorf thinks of this, as he works for Yahoo (he wrote/created PHP serverside language)...

Microsoft Corp. is making an unsolicited $44.6 billion offer for Yahoo Inc., the Internet icon and one the best known Web portals, in a move to boost its competitive edge against Google Inc. in the online services market.The unexpected announcement Friday comes as Yahoo and Microsoft have fallen behind Google in the race to capture online advertising dollars. The deal could also give lift to the entire technology market.

The announcement sent Yahoo's share price up 54 percent in premarket trading, while Google fell 8 percent. In a letter to Yahoo's board of directors, Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said the company will bid $31 per share, representing a 62 percent premium to Yahoo's closing stock price Thursday.

Since reaching a 52-week high of $34.08 in October, Yahoo shares have fallen 46 percent. Yahoo climbed $10.27 to $29.45 in premarket trading. Ballmer said in the letter that Yahoo had told the world's biggest software company a year ago that the Yahoo board felt it was not the right time to enter into discussions regarding a deal.

"According to that letter, the principal reason for this view was the Yahoo board's confidence in the "potential upside" if management successfully executed on a reformulated strategy based on certain operational initiatives, such as Project Panama, and a significant organizational realignment."

"A year has gone by, and the competitive situation has not improved," Ballmer added. Under terms of the proposed deal, Yahoo shareholders could choose to receive cash or Microsoft common shares, with the total purchase consisting of 50 percent each cash and stock.

Microsoft said it sees at least $1 billion cost savings generated by the merger, and intends to offer significant retention packages to Yahoo engineers, key leaders and employees. The software giant said it believes the takeover would receive regulatory clearance and close in the second half of 2008.

Ballmer said Microsoft expects Yahoo's board will review its proposal, but "reserves the right to pursue all necessary steps to ensure that Yahoo's shareholders are provided with the opportunity to realize the value inherent in our proposal."

Google shares fell $45.30, or 8 percent, to $519 in premarket trading. Microsoft shares dipped 90 cents, or nearly 3 percent, to $31.70. The announcement follows Yahoo's announcement late Thursday that Terry Semel stepped down as chairman, severing his ties with Yahoo 7 1/2 months after he resigned as chief executive under shareholder pressure. He had been criticized for failing to cash in on the Web advertising surge as effectively as main rival Google Inc.

Yahoo co-founder and Chief Executive Jerry Yang said this week the company will cut 1,000 jobs, or 7 percent of its work force, in an effort to cut costs.

Meanwhile, Microsoft last week forecast a rosy 2008 -- despite broader economic worries -- after it blew by Wall Street's expectations for a second consecutive quarter.

[avatar_58]

I couldn't care less. People still use Yahoo services?

[Phait]

I do, granted I use Trillian - but most of my contacts are on Yahoo. I also use Yahoo Mail, always have.

[avatar_58]

Well now you'll use yahoo.hotmail.com, enjoy.

[Phait]

PFFFF.

I just got a Gmail account for something specific, but I'm using Thunderbird with it. POP3 free = great.

[SonnyBonds]

That's a lot of money :p

[Bludd]

Meh, Yahoo.. They have a good brand, but I don't really use their products/services.

[IwantMORE]

Yahoo should take the money and run.

[peoplessi]

PFFFF.

I just got a Gmail account for something specific, but I'm using Thunderbird with it. POP3 free = great.

IMAP is better btw, as it works now with gmail.

[Mr.Fibbles]

All this is is an attempt to defeat the Google Giant.

I am curious to see how the Yahoo! mail and other services work (if they do) after this buy. I was a little curious after South Bell bought/merged into Cingular (American Cell Phone companies). I use SBC Yahoo mail (and DSL from South Bell) at home but there was no change since South Bell bought (ate up) Cingular. This however is a different story since Microsoft is offering to buy Yahoo!.
Will they merge the Yahoo! accounts with Hotmail?

[NutWrench]

Whew! Someone told me earlier this morning that MS was after Google.
I'm glad they were mistaken.

[crunchy superman]

Yahoo should take the money and run.

I agree. Too much longer and their value won't bring offers like that anymore.

[avatar_58]

Yahoo should take the money and run.

No shit, because frankly I'm surprised they even still exist. Nowadays they just cling to their spyware deals with retail PC companies. Nothing funnier than a start page that cannot be changed on a brand new PC.

[Phait]

I don't understand the notion that Yahoo is nothing more than a name.

They offer a great email service with no inherent storage limit, an IM service, their 360 community/blog effort, mobile apps, widgets app (I think they made a deal with Konfabulator, might be wrong). And their site and all they offer, they've really expanded by bounds since their debut.

[NutWrench]

Same here. I expected Yahoo to die off years ago, along with Dogpile, Lycos and Altavista.

[Wamplet]

Yahoo should take the money and run.

Agreed.

That's a lot of money to lay on and smoke.

[8IronBob]

Well, Ph8, I knew it was gonna happen, because there's been all sorts of talks of that already, didn't need any speculations on that. It was just a matter of when it was gonna be official, that's all. Now that my questions have been answered, guess that it's something that we'll have to deal with. Just M$'s way of getting back at Google, that's all.

Now that you mention speculations, I'm guessing that Google may probably side with Linus Torvalds and the Linux camp, or even Steve Jobs and the Apple camp, something of that nature. Oh wait... Google sides with no one. Well, maybe Google OS? :D (Reason I mention Google, is because they were the ones that made Yahoo lose popularity in the first place).

[avatar_58]

Same here. I expected Yahoo to die off years ago, along with Dogpile, Lycos and Altavista.

I liked hotbot myself.

[Dopefish7590]

i found yahoo to be even more relevent then google at time and i use their mail as a main email account, not to mention the coutless geocites pages that it allows you to put up as they host...

also they dont just go for internet stuff, i have personally seen a wicked awesome stereo system by yahoo

as you can probably guess, i am a yahoo user =\ and i do not want this to go through with microshit. Winblows messenger? it failed for some odd reason on my mac recently, their software crashes often, i would really rather that yahoo wouldent go for it. M$ is desperate after vista, so they are trying to get their company back up by de-railing other decnt companies... it may be a large amount of money but i can see that eventually M$ will buy yahoo and turn it into some cheap ass whatever.

[8IronBob]

With that in mind, I'm wondering if MSN will officially change its name, or if Yahoo will be turned into MSN Search, or something? I know that some name's gonna be dumped somewhere along the line. Sort of like SBC dumped their name to become AT&T when they bought them out.

[Samji]

I do, granted I use Trillian - but most of my contacts are on Yahoo. I also use Yahoo Mail, always have.

If they merge Hotmail with Yahoo! Mail; the design should follow the Yahoo! Mail Beta which is much nicer than Hotmail or "Live Mail" if you will.

[Steve]

People use Yahoo? My god. :o

[Hudson]

Ya who?

[Dopefish7590]

i do, and so do most the people i know =\

[IwantMORE]

Yahoo running on windows anyone ;)

[Dopefish7590]

yes, and mac, and linux ;)

[IwantMORE]

I meant their severs not the clients.

Remember when MS tried to get hotmail running on windows server for the first time?

[Kalki]

Read this on NYTimes yesterday (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/02/technology/02yahoo.html?em&ex=1202187600&en=89a1182332df27db&ei=5087%0A):

SAN FRANCISCO — Jerry Yang, the chief executive of Yahoo, was finishing a regularly scheduled company board meeting Thursday night when his assistant interrupted him with an urgent phone call.

It was Steven A. Ballmer, the chief executive of Microsoft, and his message was curt. He did not call to negotiate. Microsoft would make public a hostile $44.6 billion offer for Yahoo early Friday morning in a bold move to counter Google’s online pre-eminence.

Mr. Yang, in shock, rushed back with the news to his directors, some of whom were getting ready to leave Yahoo’s headquarters in Sunnyvale, Calif. The board meeting was no longer over; it would turn into a strategy session that stretched into the night.

Gotta appreciate the drama behind the scenes. :cool:

[8IronBob]

I knew that Microsoft was made of money, but I didn't think it was THAT much.
What...did they tap into Bill Gates' "Rainy Day" Retirement Fund for this?

[IwantMORE]

Apparently it would use all their money and they would have to borrow big time to pay for this.

It will either make MS even stronger or could be an AOL/Time Warner type merger. My guess is it will happen MS has been after Yahoo for a long time and it is an awfully large amount of money.

The question is does MS know what to do with yahoo when it get's it? Replacing Yahoo with MSN and Yahoo mail with Hotmail could be risky, doing the opposite would seem better but I can't see MS doing that. Or do you keep them separate happy knowing between the two you have a huge market share?

If MS get it wrong and kill off Yahoo then it's an expensive way to eliminate a competitor, but still would gain them market share.

Get it right and Google could go the way of Netscape being replaced by someone like Wiki, MySpace or Facebook as a MS alternative.

Can MS make it work and will Yahoo sell up. Gonna be the one to watch this year.

[ADM]

Well according to alexa.com and quantcast.com Yahoo is the number one website worldwide beating out Google who is at number 2.

So don't take Yahoo lightly, they still perform VERY well. This could easily boost Microsoft up the ladder (which share spots 4 and 5 with msn.com and live.com on alexa).

EDIT: Also yahoo beats google on compete.com as well:
http://siteanalytics.compete.com/yahoo.com+google.com/?metric=uv

[ZuljinRaynor]

Ya who?

I lol'd.

I haven't used Yahoo in over like 5 years. I also always found there search weaker compared to Google. This might be a good thing, or this might not change anything but I'm willing to pay attention to this.

[IwantMORE]

Yahoo may do well in number of visits. But Google is by far the top for people searching for anything.

[ADM]

Yahoo may do well in number of visits. But Google is by far the top for people searching for anything.
I completely agree as I personally prefer Google over Yahoo and haven't been there for a long time. Point is there a many other people who prefer Yahoo and they outweight the people who prefer Google.

Now they might not make as much money as Google does but they attract more people so as such yahoo seems to be doing something right.

[8IronBob]

Yeah, I remember all those old school search engines that hardly ever get used anymore, like CNet's Search.com, AltaVista, HotBot, and Magellan. I remember those days... Ahh.
We oughta get back to those search engines. It's just been too long since anyone's been making mention of all these old names. Yahoo's probably one of the originals that survived in popularity.

[IwantMORE]

[link] (http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9863034-7.html)

Quite a good article on where are they now for all those 'old' search engines.

[Mr.Fibbles]

I read that Google is trying to get in on this action too. Might be a fight to the death over Yahoo!.
Microsoft vs Google; the fight of the century.

[The Stinger]

For me yahoo is one of those things that I know of but will never use.

[8IronBob]

I think that I remember another merger of search engine companies... Remember Lycos? Weren't they bought out by some Mexican company of sorts, Terra something? That merger was nothing as opposed to this. AFAIK, MSN Search may have been nice, but I guess that Microsoft wants to replace MSN Search with Yahoo Search, is where I think they were trying to go with this.

[Droid]

This can't be good. :(

[8IronBob]

Got THAT right, Droid... I definitely see M$ going the same way as AOL Time Warner if they pull this off.
Don't forget that Yahoo bought out GeoCities, remember them for you web junkies that loved to build your own web sites? Wonder what's gonna happen with them?

[IwantMORE]

Apparently Apple, Google and News International (aka Fox, MySpace) are intersted in Yahoo too.

[Droid]

Got THAT right, Droid... I definitely see M$ going the same way as AOL Time Warner if they pull this off.


I think you got me wrong. :censored:

I don't give a flying rats arse if MS loses money and such. What I'm worried about is MS extending it's monopoly and gaining even more clout.

What can I say, I don't trust them, they being a well known monopolist (and vendor lock in expert) who isn't afraid to abuse their monopoly position to strong arm other companies and even their own customers.:mad:

... Google .. are intersted in Yahoo too.

That will never fly due to antitrust.

[FireFly]

I think you got me wrong. :censored:

I don't give a flying rats arse if MS loses money and such. What I'm worried about is MS extending it's monopoly and gaining even more clout.

What can I say, I don't trust them, they being a well known monopolist (and vendor lock in expert) who isn't afraid to abuse their monopoly position to strong arm other companies and even their own customers.:mad:
Any company in a monopoly position is likely to abuse its power. So I don't think that's necessarily an indication of a company's wider culture or aims, and where Microsoft is the underdog (as in the search/online advertising market) it doesn't have the power to exploit consumers in the first place. The opposite situation is true: Microsoft will have to do a better job of gaining and maintaining consumers' trust and support, than Google, if it's to gain market share, and so consumers should benefit from the increased competition.

[wayskobfssae]

... and then Google buys Amazon and forms Googlezon...

[wayskobfssae]

Don't forget that Yahoo bought out GeoCities, remember them for you web junkies that loved to build your own web sites? Wonder what's gonna happen with them?

I still have my old Geocities webspace. :)

[Mr.Fibbles]

... and then Google buys Amazon and forms Googlezon...

Google has a market place. . . if they bought Amazon, the same thing would happen to it that happened to YouTube: it would be merged with Google and all searches for purchases would pass through Amazon first.

[8IronBob]

Hmm, I'm wondering if Amazon would be thinking of picking up Yahoo?
I mean, after all Amazon can do quite a lot with a search engine like that.

[Droid]

Any company in a monopoly position is likely to abuse its power. So I don't think that's necessarily an indication of a company's wider culture or aims,

I beg to differ, from Microsoft's history and the halloween documents, IMO this is EXACTLY their culture.

The reason I don't like them is unlike normal companies who more or less think along the lines of

"how can I improve my product so I can sell more and make more money",

MS thinks in along the lines of

"how can I design my product so as to increase my control of the market, and lock out competition."


and where Microsoft is the underdog (as in the search/online advertising market) it doesn't have the power to exploit consumers in the first place. The opposite situation is true: Microsoft will have to do a better job of gaining and maintaining consumers' trust and support, than Google, if it's to gain market share, and so consumers should benefit from the increased competition.

Ya, I suppose it will increase competition ... for a while.

But here is what I predict will happen:

- MS will start bundling and tying it's newly acquired search into it's monopoly products, to improve marketshare. (Just like they did with IE and Windows)
We can expect built in search bars in Windows, Office and MSN (actually they are already sort of doing it with Live!, but it isn't quite working out due to Live! piss poor marketshare, Yahoo! search on the other hand.), and start making it difficult to configure the said bars to use other search engines if they allow it at all. I won't be surprise if IE starts "forgetting" your search settings randomly and defaults to "Yahoo! Live!". :rolleyes:

- MS will start burning money to undercut Google, and try to starve them to dead.
MS has 2 monopolies that practically allows them to print money, and you just to have to look at the Xbox to know they are not afraid of blowing billions of dollars.

They are going to do everything they can to KILL Google, just like what they are trying to do to Sony.

MS only plays nice when there is competition and once everyone is gone, the sheep skins comes off. You then can watch as they put the squeeze on everyone.

[8IronBob]

Tssk, hehe :D :
http://www.flickr.com/groups/microsoft-keep-your-evil-grubby-hands-off-our-flickr/pool/page2/
http://www.g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/682611/Flickr_Reacts_To_MicroYahoo.html#comments

[FireFly]

I beg to differ, from Microsoft's history and the halloween documents, IMO this is EXACTLY their culture.
Yes, but didn't the Halloween documents just reflect their desire to defend the existing market share they had built up (standard monopolist behaviour)?

The reason I don't like them is unlike normal companies who more or less think along the lines of

"how can I improve my product so I can sell more and make more money",

MS thinks in along the lines of

"how can I design my product so as to increase my control of the market, and lock out competition."
And how do you get market control? Answer: by building up market share. And how do you increase market share? Answer: by continually improving by the quality of your products, to gain an edge over your competition. That's why in fact Microsoft's culture is actually very consumer focused (one example: they have a policy of 'eating their own dog food' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eating_one%27s_own_dog_food)). Typically the first version of anything the company produces is rubbish, but they iterate again and iterate again until eventually they can hold their own. This is the pattern with Windows, Office, DirectX, Zune, and so on.

So as long as they're prevented from monopolising the market, the competition they provide can be extremely beneficial. I mean, are they a monopolist in the mobile market, or the music market, or the gaming market, or the online search/advertising market? No. Are they making big contributions to these markets? Yes.

Ya, I suppose it will increase competition ... for a while.

But here is what I predict will happen:

- MS will start bundling and tying it's newly acquired search into it's monopoly products, to improve marketshare. (Just like they did with IE and Windows)
We can expect built in search bars in Windows, Office and MSN (actually they are already sort of doing it with Live!, but it isn't quite working out due to Live! piss poor marketshare, Yahoo! search on the other hand.),
Yes, but if making Live the default windows search engine hasn't boosted market share, then what does that say about the effectiveness of that strategy?

I think these concerns are pretty overblown, and Google certainly isn't 'innocent' either:

http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/060502-090925

and start making it difficult to configure the said bars to use other search engines if they allow it at all. I won't be surprise if IE starts "forgetting" your search settings randomly and defaults to "Yahoo! Live!". :rolleyes:
You could change the default search engine in IE6, and when upgrading to IE7 Microsoft respects that choice, so if anything MS are becoming more open.

- MS will start burning money to undercut Google, and try to starve them to dead.
After spending $44 Billion on Yahoo? And what exactly are they going to do with this cash? Oh, and given Google now makes annual revenues of $17 Billion, I don't really see how they can be "starved dead".

MS has 2 monopolies that practically allows them to print money, and you just to have to look at the Xbox to know they are not afraid of blowing billions of dollars.
They lost so much on the original Xbox because they couldn't get unit costs down fast enough (due to the hard drive, and the fact that they didn't own the hardware IP, so had to pay higher component prices) while competing on price with Sony.

In terms of their acquisitions, they've been extremely restrained. Before buying Lionhead in 2006, the last developer they acquired was Rare in 2002, and the amount of first party development they do pales in comparison with Sony and Nintendo. Recently, they let Bungie, their most valuable studio, go!

They are going to do everything they can to KILL Google, just like what they are trying to do to Sony.
If that was all they were concerned about then they would have cut the price of the 360 by $100 instead of $50, last fall. Essentially they sacrificed potentially huge market share gains to have two profitable quarters. Doesn't sound like the evil domineering aggressor, does it?

MS only plays nice when there is competition and once everyone is gone, the sheep skins comes off. You then can watch as they put the squeeze on everyone.
Maybe, but that's pretty much expected behaviour for any monopolist. I'm not under the illusion Microsoft is some benevolent entity; I just think you have to recognise that their incredible dynamism can be of benefit to consumers in a competitive setting.

[Karthik]

I'm a yahoo mail user myself and if this deals go through then it'll be hell. To me Microsoft is the modern day Christian. Replace the word conversion with buyout.

[Jiminator]

lots of interesting points here. My notes:
1) the 44.6B has dropped some 10% based on the MS stock price drop
2) I doubt google could buy yahoo, too many antitrust issues there
3) MS makes most of their money selling software. the best way to sell software is to put out operating systems that break old software and make old hardware obsolete.

[Droid]

Yes, but didn't the Halloween documents just reflect their desire to defend the existing market share they had built up (standard monopolist behaviour)?

This is the main beef I have with them.

I don't believe the OS and Office app market to be natural monopolies like water services, electricity. I really wish to see some competition in the OS and office app market.

Granted having a monopoly isn't illegal (although using a monopoly to strong arm your way into a new market like they did with IE is; not to mention the "Microsoft Tax" which is plain BS), opening up the OS and Office app market will benefit all (except MS of course).


And how do you get market control? Answer: by building up market share. And how do you increase market share? Answer: by continually improving by the quality of your products, to gain an edge over your competition. That's why in fact Microsoft's culture is actually very consumer focused (one example: they have a policy of 'eating their own dog food' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eating_one%27s_own_dog_food)). Typically the first version of anything the company produces is rubbish, but they iterate again and iterate again until eventually they can hold their own. This is the pattern with Windows, Office, DirectX, Zune, and so on.

That is not quite what I meant by market control. :dopefish:

MS "controls" the market via vendor lock in. You don't honestly think, Windows and Office are dominate the market because they are the best right?


So as long as they're prevented from monopolising the market, the competition they provide can be extremely beneficial. I mean, are they a monopolist in the mobile market, or the music market, or the gaming market, or the online search/advertising market? No. Are they making big contributions to these markets? Yes.

Yes, that would be ideal. But as I said I don't trust them.
They did it with IE and got away, I believe they will do it again - not to mention given their CEO's unhealthy obsession with Google.


Yes, but if making Live the default windows search engine hasn't boosted market share, then what does that say about the effectiveness of that strategy?


I suppose Google was lucky. But you should understand, bundling stuff into Windows gives MS a huge "marketing" advantage, unfortunately for them it wasn't enough.


I think these concerns are pretty overblown, and Google certainly isn't 'innocent' either:

http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/060502-090925


Perhaps it is a tad bit over blown. But what can I say, who wouldn't be a least a little worried given MS's history.


You could change the default search engine in IE6, and when upgrading to IE7 Microsoft respects that choice, so if anything MS are becoming more open.

I hope this is the way MS is going. Maybe they have suddenly realise they have a terrible rep among quite a percentage of IT people.
That and not allow people to switch to Google or Yahoo! might actually hurt IE market share. I sure they are a little worried some people, no doubt might just say "f$%k it" I will just use Firefox or Opera, even if some pages don't work right.


After spending $44 Billion on Yahoo? And what exactly are they going to do with this cash? Oh, and given Google now makes annual revenues of $17 Billion, I don't really see how they can be "starved dead".


Well, Netscape wasn't doing all that badly either back then. :/
That and the advertising market is a zero sum game. If MS burns money to undercut Google, Google will die since almost all their money comes form ads unlike MS who has Windows and Office.


They lost so much on the original Xbox because they couldn't get unit costs down fast enough (due to the hard drive, and the fact that they didn't own the hardware IP, so had to pay higher component prices) while competing on price with Sony.

In terms of their acquisitions, they've been extremely restrained. Before buying Lionhead in 2006, the last developer they acquired was Rare in 2002, and the amount of first party development they do pales in comparison with Sony and Nintendo. Recently, they let Bungie, their most valuable studio, go!

If that was all they were concerned about then they would have cut the price of the 360 by $100 instead of $50, last fall. Essentially they sacrificed potentially huge market share gains to have two profitable quarters. Doesn't sound like the evil domineering aggressor, does it?


Hehe, I suppose even MS has limits, hardware unlike software actually cost a pretty penny to duplicate. Blowing over 7 billion over 6 year have start to get some of their investor nervous. Lucky for Sony, I guess.

I personally feel the best outcome for the console market is all 3 come out of it alive, so they can get fight it out again next gen.


Maybe, but that's pretty much expected behaviour for any monopolist. I'm not under the illusion Microsoft is some benevolent entity; I just think you have to recognise that their incredible dynamism can be of benefit to consumers in a competitive setting.

That's the thing, the "incredible dynamism" goes away when the competition does. And I have a bad feeling MS will pull "dirty tricks" again like they did with IE; don't ask me what form, but with a OS, Office app, and soon webmail and internet messaging (if the deal goes through) monopoly, I sure they can think of something.

[8IronBob]

lots of interesting points here. My notes:
1) the 44.6B has dropped some 10% based on the MS stock price drop
2) I doubt google could buy yahoo, too many antitrust issues there
3) MS makes most of their money selling software. the best way to sell software is to put out operating systems that break old software and make old hardware obsolete.

Well, this was the MSN division of Microsoft that was pulling this off, am I not correct, or was this the main Microsoft division that was doing this? I mean, it would make sense for MSN to lure Yahoo to joining their family. However, to fund this, it would probably be from subscription funds and/or Windows Live OneCare subscriptions more than anything... A combination of that, and hell, maybe M$ may have tapped into the Xbox Live/X360 funds as well for all we know!

[Droid]

Well, this was the MSN division of Microsoft that was pulling this off, am I not correct, or was this the main Microsoft division that was doing this? I mean, it would make sense for MSN to lure Yahoo to joining their family. However, to fund this, it would probably be from subscription funds and/or Windows Live OneCare subscriptions more than anything... A combination of that, and hell, maybe M$ may have tapped into the Xbox Live/X360 funds as well for all we know!

I don't think it's any division, but more of MS as a whole.
And I wouldn't use the word "lure", as this is more of a "hostile takeover". :censored:
I hear they are going to pay 50% in stock, 50% in cash, and they might have to borrow a bit, as they have only around 19 billion cash on hand.

[IwantMORE]

Yer it's most certainly not just the MSN part of MS and they will have to give up shares and borrow money to make this happen. MS will be cash strapped for a bit but seem to be doing very well from their overpriced OS and Office suite.

'Tap into the Xbox Live/X360 funds' I think you will find that they are just about braking even at best still making up lost money most likely.

[The Stinger]

... and then Google buys Amazon and forms Googlezon...

That sounds like a great name for a giant monster movie. :D

[8IronBob]

I was gonna say that since Amazon's located right around the same area as Microsoft's HQ, that would've been something to see... MSzon... Hmm.

[wayskobfssae]

That sounds like a great name for a giant monster movie. :D

Definately sounds much more menacing than Microzon.

[Delicieuxz]

Yahoo board to reject Microsoft bid as too low (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23084127/)

[Dopefish7590]

^^^^
Haha. Yea, I could see why they would'nt accept it... All I have to say is I was hoping that would happen. I like Yahoo. They should stay their own company.

[Droid]

Yahoo board to reject Microsoft bid as too low (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23084127/)

Looks like I was mistaken, it isn't a hostile takeover yet.

Yahoo!'s board is probably trying to jack up the price. I suppose we have to wait and see just how desperate MS is in acquiring Yahoo!.

[IwantMORE]

A hostile takeover is when someone buys your shares until they have a majority stake without your approval.

[Droid]

A hostile takeover is when someone buys your shares until they have a majority stake without your approval.

I heard it was a hotile takeover, but I was wrong.
They are still negotiating the bid no? If the biding falls through, it will probably be a hostile takeover if MS really wants Yahoo! that much.

[Jiminator]

I believe the founders own the majority of yahoo, so they can't do a hostile takeover. What they can do is vote for a more friendly board (march). anyway, most people are speculating that they will simply up their bid to get it resolved quickly, a fight won't gain them anything.

[IwantMORE]

Who owns Yahoo now...

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/mh?s=YHOO

[8IronBob]

:eek: M$ has to go through ALL THOSE COMPANIES?!

[8IronBob]

Heh... According to "The Feed" seems like Yahoo's doing the smart thing. Serves Gates and Ballmer right for thinking they can own the whole wide world for themselves. :D


Apparently, the Flickr protest was successful*: Yahoo has turned down Microsoft's buyout bid.

The company said the offer, made public last week, "substantially undervalues" its "global brand, large worldwide audience, significant recent investments in advertising platforms and future growth prospects, free cash flow and earnings potential, as well as our substantial unconsolidated investments."

Ball's back in Microsoft's court, who must either come up with a better offer or hit the pike.

A merger of Microsoft and Yahoo would be the world's largest of two computer technology companies and would create a formidable rival to Internet search and advertising leader Google.

Associate Press: Yahoo Formally Rejects Microsoft Offer

*Okay, the Flickr protest probably didn't matter.


http://www.g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/682735/Yahoo_Nixes_MSoft_Offer.html

Hehe... Nice Edit here, I just ran across that the link that G4 had was from Associated Press, but needless to say, AP is part of the Google Family! HAHA!!! :woot:

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5g9cE_gI-aemyNxZQb7YOBC3rsNlQD8UO5TI80

[Yatta]

So how much does Yahoo think it's worth, if it's turning down $44 billion? If you're going to turn down that much money, it probably means you just care more about being indepedent in running your company rather than becoming more profitable.

[FireFly]

That is not quite what I meant by market control. :dopefish:

MS "controls" the market via vendor lock in. You don't honestly think, Windows and Office are dominate the market because they are the best right?
They dominate the market because they've become de facto standards, and Microsoft obviously helped that by closing off their technology, and preventing interoperability. But that strategy only going to be successful if you have substantial market power in the first place, and you can exploit proprietary standards to cement market share gains. I don't think this reflects Microsoft's position in the online market.

Yes, that would be ideal. But as I said I don't trust them.
They did it with IE and got away, I believe they will do it again - not to mention given their CEO's unhealthy obsession with Google.
The IE dispute happened 10 years ago, and Microsoft are now bound by a 2002 department of justice settlement, requiring them to give users a fair choice between Microsoft's own products and third party alternatives. The EU has been even stricter, forcing Microsoft for example, to unbundle Windows Media Player from the OS entirely.

I think this is reflected in Microsoft's current culture and strategies: Windows Live (http://get.live.com/) being an optional download for Vista, not part of the OS. Google's insistence that Microsoft open up their desktop search facility, has also resulted in the company doing just that, as part of the new service pack, and even Microsoft's proprietary office formats have now been replaced with open, XML-based alternatives.

So even Microsoft's 'classic' strategies for maintaining market power are being superseded, as interoperability becomes a selling point in itself. But furthermore, we're talking about the search and online advertising market here, where there are few exploitable barriers to entry. If a consumer wants to use Google instead of Live search, what's to stop him from doing that? What can Microsoft possibly do to prevent a user from navigating to a different website?

And in the online advertising sphere what counts is the quality of the algorithms used by the search provider, so that the click through to sale ratio is as high as possible (due to the ads being appropriately targeted). Companies like Google or Yahoo don't charge the advertiser a given fee to appear in their results or on supporting web pages; instead advertisers (blindly) auction for a given position, so the amount they pay depends on the amount other advertisers are prepared to pay. This means that there is no room for Microsoft to 'undercut' Google - if they want to take away Google's business, they need to provide a better service for advertisers.

So on balance, I think the acquisition would be more likely to yield good than bad outcomes, giving Microsoft more market share, but still forcing them to work to catch up with Google.

[8IronBob]

Hard to believe that there were times that I thought that SBC/AT&T owned Yahoo, because of the naming on their old DSL package from way back when. However, I guess that wasn't meant to be. That might happen, because you know that SBC/AT&T's another company like Time Warner and Microsoft that think they can own the whole world.

[Droid]

They dominate the market because they've become de facto standards, and Microsoft obviously helped that by closing off their technology, and preventing interoperability.

That's what I don't like about them.

Step 1:They dominate the market (by whatever means, some times legally but making good products, some times illegally by abusing their monopoly position). The former is fine, latter not so.

Step 2:Then they screw interoperability, ta da lock in.

Step 2 is what I have problems with. :mad: Restricting choice is bad for all (except MS of course).

But that strategy only going to be successful if you have substantial market power in the first place, and you can exploit proprietary standards to cement market share gains. I don't think this reflects Microsoft's position in the online market.

MS wasn't top in the browser market either during the Netscape era. We all know what happened after that.

... been replaced with open, XML-based alternatives.

Ah MS OOXML, the file format MS is trying to force down the ISO's throat, they even bribe some companies (http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/08/31/Sweden-OOXML-vote-invalid_1.html) into voting for them. Can I say corruption?

The OOXML spec is over 6000 pages long, that's practically unimplementable. Just the way MS wants it, this way no one can implement the standard properly and we are stuck with the most popular "variant" of OOXML and guess who is going to be the one to be offering it.

Oh ya, we already have a ISO approved document file format called ODF, why create another one?

If a consumer wants to use Google instead of Live search, what's to stop him from doing that? What can Microsoft possibly do to prevent a user from navigating to a different website?

As I said, tying stuff in with their monopoly products give them an edge.

I mean how would you feel if you had a software product that is doing well and MS came along and made their own version that is poorer then yours. However they tie it into Windows, maybe a few shortcuts here and there to advertise it and maybe tweak Windows a bit so it works better with their product. i.e. Use their monopoly position to push their product.

It won't stop people from using your product but I doubt you will like the above scenario.

And in the online advertising sphere what counts is the quality of the algorithms used by the search provider, so that the click through to sale ratio is as high as possible (due to the ads being appropriately targeted). Companies like Google or Yahoo don't charge the advertiser a given fee to appear in their results or on supporting web pages; instead advertisers (blindly) auction for a given position, so the amount they pay depends on the amount other advertisers are prepared to pay. This means that there is no room for Microsoft to 'undercut' Google - if they want to take away Google's business, they need to provide a better service for advertisers.

So on balance, I think the acquisition would be more likely to yield good than bad outcomes, giving Microsoft more market share, but still forcing them to work to catch up with Google.

I suppose you are right. The reason Google is one top now is because their ads work well as they are well targeted. At least better targeted than the ads serve by it's competitors.
The "undercutting" strategy might not work so well here, if advertisers are more concern with results rather then cost.

But nevertheless I still worry...

This acquisition will make them the biggest Webmail and Internet Messaging provider. That's just ripe for abuse.
Who is to say MS won't start messing about with their Webmail so it won't work quite right in non-IE browsers, and somehow tie their Internet Messaging into IE. All for the sake of trying to bury non-IE browsers, to boost IE dominance. Once Firefox's and Opera's market share is weaken, they can start messing with the way IE handles Google's pages.
Now what I just said may sound outlandish, but so was MS give American anti-trust law the finger and bundling IE with Windows.

[dlink]

I never use Yahoo, i'm European also that might be it. It's like too americanised for Europeans.

[IwantMORE]

Apparently some of the shareholders are taking legal action because the board said no to MS. I wonder if MS is helping fund that?

Rupert Murdoch is supposed to be talking to Yahoo now. I guess if the offer goes up then those taking legal action will look stupid.

[8IronBob]

Yeah, this may go on for a YEAR before anything moves in a direction that may be fitting...

[FireFly]

That's what I don't like about them.

Step 1:They dominate the market (by whatever means, some times legally but making good products, some times illegally by abusing their monopoly position). The former is fine, latter not so.

Step 2:Then they screw interoperability, ta da lock in.

Step 2 is what I have problems with. :mad: Restricting choice is bad for all (except MS of course).
Yes, and my point was simply that you have to distinguish the first practice from the second, because in cases where they cannot aquire significant monopoly power (which I believe applies to the search/online advertising market, at least at present) their presence can be extremely beneficial.

MS wasn't top in the browser market either during the Netscape era. We all know what happened after that.
Microsoft didn't win because it locked Netscape out of proprietary standards (and both companies were guilty of developing their own specific HTML extensions), it won because it was able to outpace Netscape in terms of feature support and browser speed (due to greater R&D investment), and given this, the bundling of IE with Windows tipped support in MS' favour.

One of the recent models depicting this, estimates that had Microsoft not bundled IE with Windows, Microsoft would still have overtaken Netscape by 2000.

http://elsa.berkeley.edu/wp/mcfadden0204/browser120104.pdf (see page 43)

So clearly, Microsoft's abuse of its existing monopoly position in the OS market gave it an unfair advantage, but at the same time, Microsoft had to put itself in a position to exploit that advantage, and in fact did prove to be an an extremely effective competitor. That was 10 years ago, though. Today's climate is very different, and Microsoft have committed to a strategy of giving consumers greater product choice, and in any case they themselves have little choice given the legal pressures they're under. So here, Microsoft's dynamism can be a big benefit to consumers.

The OOXML spec is over 6000 pages long, that's practically unimplementable. Just the way MS wants it, this way no one can implement the standard properly and we are stuck with the most popular "variant" of OOXML and guess who is going to be the one to be offering it.
Except the standard has already been implimented in a number of applications, including OpenOffice, WordPerfect, and Apple's iWork.

http://blogs.msdn.com/brian_jones/archive/2007/08/07/iwork-08-supports-the-open-xml-formats.aspx

Microsoft has also set up an open source project to create a binary (i.e .doc, xls, ppt) to OOXML coverter.

http://b2xtranslator.sourceforge.net/

On top of this, they've released their old binary Office formats as open specifications, allowing anyone to make use of them:

http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/01/17/1553206
http://www.microsoft.com/interop/osp/default.mspx#EYH

Oh ya, we already have a ISO approved document file format called ODF, why create another one?
So that the formatting contained in billions of existing Office documents can be preserved.

As I said, tying stuff in with their monopoly products give them an edge.
Yes, but we're talking about a website here, not a software product. Installing and learning how to use a piece of non-Microsoft software is rather different from typing a few words into the address bar of your browser (presumably people who use the internet know how to do that), and then clicking a different search button!

This acquisition will make them the biggest Webmail and Internet Messaging provider. That's just ripe for abuse.
Who is to say MS won't start messing about with their Webmail so it won't work quite right in non-IE browsers, and somehow tie their Internet Messaging into IE. All for the sake of trying to bury non-IE browsers, to boost IE dominance. Once Firefox's and Opera's market share is weaken, they can start messing with the way IE handles Google's pages.
Now what I just said may sound outlandish, but so was MS give American anti-trust law the finger and bundling IE with Windows.
I don't think Microsoft's decision to bundle IE was outlandish at all. It happened because there hadn't been a previous precedent, and so Microsoft's accountability hadn't been demonstrated. Now, however, we have an existing precedent: if Microsoft uses their OS monopoly to give them an unfair distribution advantage over their competition, then they will be held legally accountable. So if Microsoft was to do what you suggest, they'd most likely in breach of the 2002 settlement that they're bound by, and would in any case be open to anti-trust suits that they would have no or little chance of winning. And as evidence for this, if you actually look at the current situation with regard to bundling you'll see that Messenger is no longer bundled with Windows (in Vista), as with Microsoft's security suite, OneCare.

Additionally, if they want to keep market share in any of their online products, they had better not lock out competing websites. If Google didn't work well with IE then that would be A), a PR disaster, completely tarnishing the IE brand and most likely creating a massive backlash against Microsoft, and B) a very good reason for people to switch to a non-Microsoft browser, like Firefox. It would in other words be one sure fire way of throwing away all the market share they'd worked so hard to gain. Equally, if their webmail client doesn't work in non-IE browsers then that's A) a reason to use both browsers or B) A reason to switch to a different webmail provider, especially in the light of the PR fallout.

I don't think Microsoft has ever done something so explicitly bad for consumers. I mean with their own proprietary standards at least they can claim that they're adding value (through their non-standard features), but what's the value to a consumer of not being able to access a particular website? In that case Microsoft would be actively impairing the ability of their product to perform its intended purpose.

So I simply don't think these sorts of practices work in today's world, in which restricting interoperability makes your product a lot less valuable to consumers; which is why Microsoft are having to open up their standards and give users more choice. Why do you think they decided to support the ODF format in Office?

[Droid]

Yes, and my point was simply that you have to distinguish the first practice from the second, because in cases where they cannot aquire significant monopoly power (which I believe applies to the search/online advertising market, at least at present) their presence can be extremely beneficial.

In short, I'm very distrustful of MS. I view every move they move with extreme cynicism.

I quite happy with the status quote now, sure Google is dominating, but Yahoo! isn't doing all that bad (they are profitable no?).
IMO Yahoo! just needs to get it's act together, hired better eggheads to improve their search algorithm and their ad targetting system, and they will be head to head with Google.

Who knows what will happen if MS somehow gets on top? .. Wait I take that back. We DO KNOW what is likely to happen when MS gain dominance in a market, base on it's history, now don't we?

Microsoft didn't win because it locked Netscape out of proprietary standards (and both companies were guilty of developing their own specific HTML extensions), it won because it was able to outpace Netscape in terms of feature support and browser speed (due to greater R&D investment), and given this, the bundling of IE with Windows tipped support in MS' favour.

One of the recent models depicting this, estimates that had Microsoft not bundled IE with Windows, Microsoft would still have overtaken Netscape by 2000.

http://elsa.berkeley.edu/wp/mcfadden0204/browser120104.pdf (see page 43)

So clearly, Microsoft's abuse of its existing monopoly position in the OS market gave it an unfair advantage, but at the same time, Microsoft had to put itself in a position to exploit that advantage, and in fact did prove to be an an extremely effective competitor. That was 10 years ago, though. Today's climate is very different, and Microsoft have committed to a strategy of giving consumers greater product choice, and in any case they themselves have little choice given the legal pressures they're under. So here, Microsoft's dynamism can be a big benefit to consumers.

Ya, I admit, IE was the better browser back in it's day.
But who knows what would have happen had Netscape not got killed due to MS illegal maneuver.
Gosh, Netscape might have even been able to pull a comeback. Guess we will never know.

Except the standard has already been implimented in a number of applications, including OpenOffice, WordPerfect, and Apple's iWork.

http://blogs.msdn.com/brian_jones/archive/2007/08/07/iwork-08-supports-the-open-xml-formats.aspx

Microsoft has also set up an open source project to create a binary (i.e .doc, xls, ppt) to OOXML coverter.

http://b2xtranslator.sourceforge.net/

On top of this, they've released their old binary Office formats as open specifications, allowing anyone to make use of them:

http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/01/17/1553206
http://www.microsoft.com/interop/osp/default.mspx#EYH


The thing here is "How well?".
Look at web browsers, I heard most browsers don't even fully implemented the CSS2 spec which is about 300+ page properly.

6000+ page, good lord.
Not to mention it contain undefined stuff like "autoSpaceLikeWord95" in the spec. WTF does that mean!?!?!

And what is with the bribing. The ISO is an international standards body, have some respect. :mryuck:


So that the formatting contained in billions of existing Office documents can be preserved.

Can't you convert it to ODF?


Yes, but we're talking about a website here, not a software product. Installing and learning how to use a piece of non-Microsoft software is rather different from typing a few words into the address bar of your browser (presumably people who use the internet know how to do that), and then clicking a different search button!

People are lazy, it's human nature, most will use what is most convenient. Making it prominent in MS's monopoly product, will make it the most convenient. This is an advantage that only MS can take advantage off.


I don't think Microsoft's decision to bundle IE was outlandish at all. It happened because there hadn't been a previous precedent, and so Microsoft's accountability hadn't been demonstrated.

I will give you that, maybe MS somehow deluded themselves into thinking that Windows isn't a monopoly.
Either that or they need better lawyers who can actually read and understand anti trust laws. LOL.


Now, however, we have an existing precedent: if Microsoft uses their OS monopoly to give them an unfair distribution advantage over their competition, then they will be held legally accountable. So if Microsoft was to do what you suggest, they'd most likely in breach of the 2002 settlement that they're bound by, and would in any case be open to anti-trust suits that they would have no or little chance of winning. And as evidence for this, if you actually look at the current situation with regard to bundling you'll see that Messenger is no longer bundled with Windows (in Vista), as with Microsoft's security suite, OneCare.

They burnt Netscape to the ground, and all they got as punishment was "a slap on the waist", that the DOJ will be "watching" them. OMG MS is being watched I sure they are scared. LOL.
It's like an arsonist burns down a house and the only punishment he got was "Don't do it again, we are watching you. Yes, watching you!"

If the situation gets desperate, you never know, they might try it again. What can I say, the US DOJ has no teeth.



Additionally, if they want to keep market share in any of their online products, they had better not lock out competing websites. If Google didn't work well with IE then that would be A), a PR disaster, completely tarnishing the IE brand and most likely creating a massive backlash against Microsoft, and B) a very good reason for people to switch to a non-Microsoft browser, like Firefox. It would in other words be one sure fire way of throwing away all the market share they'd worked so hard to gain. Equally, if their webmail client doesn't work in non-IE browsers then that's A) a reason to use both browsers or B) A reason to switch to a different webmail provider, especially in the light of the PR fallout.

I don't think Microsoft has ever done something so explicitly bad for consumers. I mean with their own proprietary standards at least they can claim that they're adding value (through their non-standard features), but what's the value to a consumer of not being able to access a particular website? In that case Microsoft would be actively impairing the ability of their product to perform its intended purpose.

They are already doing that. Of course they don't make their site totally not work. It's just that it will not work as well.
My school uses Outlook Web Access for webmail, I force myself to use IE to access it, cause Firefox and Opera sometime doesn't work quite right.


So I simply don't think these sorts of practices work in today's world, in which restricting interoperability makes your product a lot less valuable to consumers; which is why Microsoft are having to open up their standards and give users more choice. Why do you think they decided to support the ODF format in Office?

Yupe, they will when force too. But believe me, they will fight tooth and nail to preserve their vendor lock in.

[Mr.Fibbles]

Now things are getting interesting here:
Yahoo! shareholders sue Yahoo! over not taking the deal (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080222/ap_on_hi_te/yahoo_shareholder_lawsuit)

[Yatta]

Lawl teh Yahooz is suing itself omg!111!111 :D


...and all because of 10 measly billions.

[Phait]

How can you sue for not taking a deal? How is that doing the shareholders wrong and giving them grounds to sue? It's probably a naive question as I know nothing about big business... but it's WTF.

[Jiminator]

shareholders are not the same as the actual business. the shareholders are looking to convert their shares from yahoo to msoft, as would happen with a stock/money deal. yahoo stock had tanked, if the offer fails it will tank again. Why should a shareholder lose 1/2 to 1/3 of their value just because someone has a big ego? the board has to be responsible to the shareholders, it is not their own little fiefdom they are running.

[Phait]

I still don't understand. I will have to take a course in stocks cause I don't know anything.

Oh well :p

[Sang]

Now things are getting interesting here:
Yahoo! shareholders sue Yahoo! over not taking the deal (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080222/ap_on_hi_te/yahoo_shareholder_lawsuit)

wh

wha

what

[8IronBob]

shareholders are not the same as the actual business. the shareholders are looking to convert their shares from yahoo to msoft, as would happen with a stock/money deal. yahoo stock had tanked, if the offer fails it will tank again. Why should a shareholder lose 1/2 to 1/3 of their value just because someone has a big ego? the board has to be responsible to the shareholders, it is not their own little fiefdom they are running.

One question about that tho...How would that affect those shareholders from BOTH companies? One who owns stock from Yahoo AND Microsoft (not saying I do, but even so...) would probably be wondering how their investments would come together. Dual shareholders would probably be wondering a lot about this.

[Steve]

Now things are getting interesting here:
Yahoo! shareholders sue Yahoo! over not taking the deal (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080222/ap_on_hi_te/yahoo_shareholder_lawsuit)

Didn't expect that :o

[Jiminator]

a shareholder with microsoft + yahoo stocks would see his yahoo stocks redeemed for additional microsoft stock + cash. They would be able to use the cash for other investments or more microsoft. So the original microsoft stock would be devalued somewhat (because there would be more of it in other peoples hands, additionally reserve cash was spent) but also would increase due to the assets + value of yahoo, so the overall value will remain about the same, and in theory the assets of yahoo will allow the company to grow more quickly, which increases shareholder value. This stuff is not too uncommon.

[Dopefish7590]

Now things are getting interesting here:
Yahoo! shareholders sue Yahoo! over not taking the deal (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080222/ap_on_hi_te/yahoo_shareholder_lawsuit)

I really didn't see that coming. :o

[Kalki]

Really? Wasn't it believed that MS would try taking their case directly to the shareholders, over the board's heads? This suit was an expected outcome.

[IwantMORE]

Hay don't you Americans sue over everything?

If Yahoo ends up getting more money can they then sue these people for trying to get them to sell at a lower price?

[Reaper]

Hay don't you Americans sue over everything?
I don't think it's true, but that's the generally accepted viewpoint, yes. Perhaps it is "everyone thinks Americans sue over everything".

[Tetsuro]

I myself couldn't care less unless MS buying Yahoo would've made Geocities no longer deserve it's nickname "Geosh*tties" :p

[FireFly]

In short, I'm very distrustful of MS. I view every move they move with extreme cynicism.
That's fine, but the market itself dictates what it is viable for them to do, and if their previous anti-competitive practices don't make sense in the current climate (for which I have provided plenty of evidence), then you should expect Microsoft not to engage in them.

I quite happy with the status quote now, sure Google is dominating, but Yahoo! isn't doing all that bad (they are profitable no?).
IMO Yahoo! just needs to get it's act together, hired better eggheads to improve their search algorithm and their ad targetting system, and they will be head to head with Google.
Yes, but that doesn't mean that competitively they're in a good position - in fact not only does Google occupy the vast majority of the search and online advertising markets, but it's actually pulling away, with year on year increases in market share that further cement its position and make an effective Yahoo response more difficult.

For example, in March 2006 Google accounted for 58.3% of US searches, in November 2006 that had grown to 61.8%, and this November they were at 65.1%. In the same period both Yahoo and MSN search have lost market share.

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/12/28/googles-market-share-grows-and-grows-and-grows/

It's a similar situation in the online advertising space, where Yahoo's market share has dropped from 19.4% in 2005 to 15.5% at the start of 2007, and Google's has risen from 19.2% to 28.6%.

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/digitalcontent/2008/02/google_yahoo_and_msns_ad_reven.html

So just to stay where they are, (and maintain the status quo that you're happy with) Yahoo need to be able to compete more aggressively, which is a problem given that they have a fraction of the R&D resources of Google. This presents the perfect opportunity for MS to step in.

ws what will happen if MS somehow gets on top? .. Wait I take that back. We DO KNOW what is likely to happen when MS gain dominance in a market, base on it's history, now don't we?
Yes, if what has happened in the past is always a guarantee of what will happen in the future.

The thing here is "How well?".
Look at web browsers, I heard most browsers don't even fully implemented the CSS2 spec which is about 300+ page properly.
Firefox fully implements the CSS2 spec, to my knowledge - it passed the Acid2 test (designed purposely to exploit CSS2 rendering flaws) in December 2006. You're probably thinking of Internet Explorer, which only now passes with IE 8, however IE's poor standards support has more to do with its ancient 'Trident' rendering engine, than any problems on the part of MS in understanding the spec.

A better example would be the ODF specification, which runs to 738 pages! Has there been any problem properly implementing that format? Now, yes, the OOXML spec is still several times larger, but you also have to recognise that it's split into several parts and apparently a lot of it is filled up simply with introductions, primers and repeated markup references:

"A rough breakdown of OOXML:

~100 page "Fundamentals" document;
~200 page "Packaging Conventions" document;
~450 page "Primer" document (a tutorial);
~1850 page Word Processing reference document;
~1090 page Spreadsheet Processing reference document;
~270 page Presentation Processing reference document;
~1140 page Drawing Processing reference document;
~900 pages for other references (VML, SharedML)
~42 future extensibility document. "

http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2007/Jan-30.html

There are, for example, 324 pages of formulas and functions! So I think, at most, what the length of the spec will mean (and what it has meant) is that developers will focus on adding word processing, presentation and spreadsheet support individually; in the long run, however all the required work will have been done, and the standard will be fully interoperable, especially given the converters that are being developed.

Not to mention it contain undefined stuff like "autoSpaceLikeWord95" in the spec. WTF does that mean!?!?!
It's one of many legacy compatibility settings that have since been depreciated and are no longer included in the body of the standard:

http://www.ecma-international.org/news/TC45_current_work/New%20proposed%20dispositions%20extend%20progress% 20in%20addressing%20all%20National%20Body%20commen ts.htm

And what is with the bribing. The ISO is an international standards body, have some respect. :mryuck:
Seems like an e-mail was sent out by one employee of Microsoft's Swedish subsidiary that the company retracted when they became aware of it.

http://politics.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/08/30/211227

In any case, the EU are investigating the whole approval process.

Can't you convert it to ODF?

Yes, and in the process you lose the Office-specific formatting. Those billions of documents can't be preserved in their entirety unless every formatting quirk, covering a decade or more of cumulative format bloat, can be retained, which is where OOXML comes in, and why OOXML as a specification is so long.

People are lazy, it's human nature, most will use what is most convenient. Making it prominent in MS's monopoly product, will make it the most convenient. This is an advantage that only MS can take advantage off.
If users won't navigate away from the default search engine, then why is Live Search's market share falling year on year, putting it now at a paltry 7%?

They burnt Netscape to the ground, and all they got as punishment was "a slap on the waist", that the DOJ will be "watching" them. OMG MS is being watched I sure they are scared. LOL.
It's like an arsonist burns down a house and the only punishment he got was "Don't do it again, we are watching you. Yes, watching you!"

If they're not worried, (because the settlement and the precedent it sets, is ineffective) then why did they open up Vista's desktop search (http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-6192065.html) to competing providers, following Google's complaint to the DoJ? Why did they recently relax their prohibition on virtualisation (http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9067579&intsrc=hm_list)in Home Basic and Home Premium, following an anti-trust complaint by Phoenix Technologies?

Either anti-trust litigation is a threat to Microsoft or it isn't. If it isn't then - explain Microsoft's recent concessions - and if it is then surely that's a good reason to expect Microsoft not to engage in anti-competitive practices?

If the situation gets desperate, you never know, they might try it again. What can I say, the US DOJ has no teeth.
Right, and the situation isn't desperate, so we can expect Microsoft not to engage in major breaches of the settlement.

They are already doing that. Of course they don't make their site totally not work. It's just that it will not work as well.
My school uses Outlook Web Access for webmail, I force myself to use IE to access it, cause Firefox and Opera sometime doesn't work quite right.
Outlook Web Access is part of Microsoft Exchange Server, and as the included webmail program, it has little to do with Microsoft's webmail service - Windows Live Mail. The light version OWA is designed for, and should work fine with all non-IE browsers. The Premium version does not work with Firefox, because:

"It's pretty cheap for us to add support for additional browsers to OWA Light, since we don't have many advanced AJAX behaviors in it. But OWA2007 Premium is among the most advanced AJAX applications on the planet and there are literally hundreds of small browser specific tweaks and modifications we would need to figure out to make it work flawlessly in Firefox"

http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2006/09/13/428901.aspx

Now if you look at Microsoft' actual webmail service, Windows Live Mail, you'll see that despite initially only offering support for the 'basic' mode, Microsoft later moved towards feature parity across both browsers.

http://chronotron.wordpress.com/2006/05/09/windows-live-mail-to-support-firefox/

"On a positive note, I've tested Windows Live Hotmail in IE 7 and Mozilla Firefox 2 (see my review), and it appears to render almost identically in each browser, with a few exceptions."

http://www.winsupersite.com/reviews/winlive_hotmail.asp

Yupe, they will when force too. But believe me, they will fight tooth and nail to preserve their vendor lock in.
Yes, and my point is that when the very economics of software development force them to give up "vendor lock in", as they have - there is no going back. Microsoft have released their old binary Office formats for free, and transitioned to an open-source format, one that is in fact implementable by non-MS companies. It's done. They've made MSN and OneCare optional downloads, rather than mandatory parts of the OS, clearly indicating that it's no longer in their interest to tie major new software services directly to the OS. In this vein, their applications, individually, have continued to become more open, with the option of choosing search providers both in IE and in Vista itself, and the full, by default, support of CSS2 in IE8.

Again, their decision to fully support Firefox with their new Windows Live Mail features, shows that they gain more by increasing their potential webmail audience than they lose by allowing the use of a rival browser. This reasoning applies equally to any modifications they may make to IE that reduce its compatibility with Google products.

[mon2908]

How many jobs will be destroyed by this takeover?

[ADM]

Now things are getting interesting here:
Yahoo! shareholders sue Yahoo! over not taking the deal (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080222/ap_on_hi_te/yahoo_shareholder_lawsuit)
Knew something like that would happen, didn't think they'd sue but I knew they'd be pissed and could force the buyout.

That's why Microsoft did the public offering so the shareholders would know about it and force Yahoo into selling for that offer.

[8IronBob]

Wonder if that's the same set of stockholders putting on this suit:

http://www.g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/683506/Shareholder_Sues_TakeTwo.html#commentpost

After all, the MS/Yahoo and the EA/Take Two buyouts seem to be rather big news, and they seem to have some stockholders that are rather wincy, from what I hear.

[I-Ninja]

Hay don't you Americans sue over everything?

If Yahoo ends up getting more money can they then sue these people for trying to get them to sell at a lower price?

Eh, It's more of a view point for most people. While I will admit that us American's sue more often lately, its not as bad as the News Media makes it sound. The News will take one case and blow it up, making it seem much worse.

Sorry about getting off topic.

[Daveman]

It's not happening (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7382572.stm).

[Mr.Fibbles]

Saw that. This is probably a good thing.

[IwantMORE]

"Steve Ballmer, told Yahoo! it must accept Microsoft's 31 cents-per-share offer by 07:00 on Sunday April 27th."

Or else we will walk away from the deal!

[Jiminator]

the stock is going to tank tomorrow. it would probably have been a good risk to short it last friday.