Microsoft Attempting to Buy Yahoo

Microsoft has offered $44.6 billion dollars to buy Yahoo, or about $31 a share. $31 a share for Yahoo is 62% above Yahoo’s closing price of $19.18 yesterday and in today’s trading the stock price has jumped all the way up to $28 today upon news of the bid.

What does Microsoft’s bid for Yahoo mean for search engines? I think it would give Microsoft a much stronger base from which to compete with Google, but I think that in the end it will end up reducing Yahoo’s user base as people who oppose the Evil Empire switch to Google- which has become an evil empire in it’s own right. Neither search engine has really monetized search properly, so a strong shakeup could help Live.com and Yahoo.com’s search technologies. Another issue is that Yahoo has started moving recently to become more of a content provider than anything else. I am curiously watching the merger to see how it progresses.

Any thoughts on implications of a Microsoft takeover of Yahoo?

3 Responses to “Microsoft Attempting to Buy Yahoo”

1. 1
   Josh Says:
   February 1st, 2008 at 5:32 pm

   Joel-
   Go to my blog, need your opinon.

   But here is my comments that I have,

   1) Do a big blog on Tom Cruise’s religion, and talk about the opposing group Anonymous

   2) I was a little upset that you didn’t put a “Spoiler Alert” on your blog about Cloverfield.

2. 2
   God Says:
   February 1st, 2008 at 7:31 pm

   The Microsoft buyout attempt dropped their stock over $2.00 today, and Yahoo climbed like $8.00 or something. It seemed like a foolish move to me- already with Internet Explorer and a lot standardized defaults to their search site built in, it would seem like a bad attempt at a monopoly. Their best counterpoint is Google’s massive market share.

   I think it was a dumb move on their part. Microsoft keeps putting out some good products, but because of their Evil Empire status they never win. Companies like Apple play the part of a “little guy” and manage to introduce hip image associated products that can be accepted as trends. Buying Yahoo won’t help them in any of their struggles.

3. 3
   Joel Says:
   February 1st, 2008 at 9:33 pm

   Josh- I left you a comment on your blog @ jdawsk.blog.com. I have heard about the group Anonymous trying to take down Scientology… they just brought a couple servers down for a short time. Stopping a religion is almost impossible in real terms because people who join religions are not rational. Scientology was a science fiction book fifty years ago and now is a cheesy religion… but then again that’s how most religions start. I DID have a spoiler alert on the Cloverfield post- go read it again. Thanks for the comment bro.

   God- Microsoft probably is making a not so genius call by trying to buy out Yahoo, but time will tell what’s going on. Yahoo is a little ridiculous at this point and has been killed on the market lately.

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