02/09/2008, 7:50pm, EST
Saturday, February 9thSource: Yahoo rejects Microsoft bid
Yahoo has rejected Microsoft's $44.6 billion takeover bid, says a Wall Street Journal source allegedly close to the deal. After a last-minute meeting yesterday, Yahoo's board is said to have rebuffed the offer from Microsoft believing that the Windows developer is acting out of opportunism. The buyout offer was an attempt to prey on Yahoo at a weak point in its history, the rumored insider says. Although the offer of $31 per share is significantly higher than Yahoo's stock value at the time of the proposal, the search engine firm's executives reportedly believe that this offer is undervalued and are waiting for a bid of $40 per share or more, which could raise the worth of the bid to $56 billion.
As a result of the decision, Yahoo may still be willing to consider a Google alliance or a similar deal to sour the prospects for Microsoft. Yahoo may alternately be placing a calculated bet that Microsoft would be unwilling to generate the ill will that would likely stem from a genuinely hostile takeover, the newspaper notes, as many employees may openly resist a forced buyout.
Microsoft had initially tried to position its bid as a mutually beneficial deal that was the culmination of months of "off and on" negotiaton, claiming that both it and Yahoo would need to merge to provide a major alternative to Google. However, Yahoo's initial response and later investigation revealed that Microsoft was ultimately fulfilling an ultimatum that threatened Yahoo with a public declaration of the bid if the latter company did not agree to a deal in private.
Filed under: industry
Other story tags: Microsoft, Google, Yahoo
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In our business, there are numerous employees (COO's and presidents especially) who I have spoken with that are interested in Macs. This doesn't make for a switchover to Macs but the interest and desire for using a Mac is a first step.
A younger, more open IT generation, is coming into the workforce. There is much more interest in Microsoft alternatives than ever before.
Last, I believe software/hardware technology found in future Macs (within 2-4 years) will allow 90%+ Windows applications to run natively within OS X (without Windows). Hopefully not in a "clunky" way, but seamlessly.
I, personally, do not know if this is a good thing for the Mac community, but it would be a draw for those businesses who would like to go sans-Microsoft but cannot find their software for other platforms and do not want to use Window's on a Mac.
In any case, all regimes fall given time. Microsoft is no exception.
I remember talking to a typesetter in 1992. He said "Im not worried about my job, no one will ever be able to make software that can typeset as well as we can".
Uh - know any typesetters?
Doofuses.
IBM is still around, but only as a ghost-like reminder of what once was.