Time To Change Microsoft – Yahoo (MSFT/YHOO), Here's a Better Deal

A quick update on the Microsoft – Yahoo deal. Now that people have had a chance to digest the deal a bit, I notice the sentiment is turning negative. Microsoft shareholders are walking and employees of both companies seem unhappy. The value of the offer has shrunk over $2/share already. It also seem clear that Jerry does not want the deal to happen. The only winners so far seem to be short- and mid-term YHOO shareholders. While it’s unclear if another suitor will jump in or make Microsoft up the bid, it seems unlikely. It’s still possible Yahoo could outsource its search to Google, but it’s clear that doing nothing is not an option. Since I think the deal would be bad for Open Source in a lot of ways, I was glad to see a reasonable proposal posted recently. It’s clear that Microsoft just does not do the web very well. Despite piles of money and a lot of motivation, they continue to fail miserably. The fact that they had to make this offer shows just how little faith they have in getting things done on their own. Forcing Yahoo to become part of Microsoft would almost certainly be a disaster. How this is going to play out is still up in the air, but I’ll be watching closely.

As a side note, I’ve seen a couple posts made that indicate this deal could be the beginning of the end for Microsoft. I think that’s a bit dramatic, but I will say that the fact that Ballmer is still CEO does surprise me a bit.

–jeremy