Microsoft drops Yahoo Bid – And the Game Begins
So finally the 3-month old story comes to an end.
Microsoft finally walks out of the deal (Steve Ballmer still screaming ‘developers developers developers!”)
If you look at the entire story (has it really ended?), I think it’s a classic move of negotiation play between two biggies :
- MS goes public and offers to buy Yahoo,
- Yahoo says not interested, price too less
- MS says, No way! – We aren’t going to hike.
- Yahoo plants google ads pilot tests for 3 weeks.
- Microsoft threatens to replace the board with ‘it’s own’ friends
- MS raises the bid, goes uptill $31
- Yahoo sticks to it’s stand
- MS calls it off.
While this may affect Yahoo’s shares in the interim, I strongly believe that now Y! needs to pull up it’s socks and deliver results.
Personally, I don’t think Y! + MS deal would have made sense – while it looks cool to have a desktop and web player marriage, the integration is a big challenge.
Disclaimer – I work for y!. Views expressed are entirely personal.
About the author - Ashish Sinha is a Startup Mentor/Product Strategy Coach, and the founder/chief editor of pluGGd.in.
He has launched/managed couple of products (consumer as well as enterprise) in US and India, and now consults with startups/small businesses on their product/media strategy. He can be reached at: ashish (at) pluGGd.in [+91 98452 06443]
Hello Yahooligan!!!!
Take a look at what Om Malik has to say abt this…
(http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/OmMalik/~3/283019123/)
By choosing to sleep with Google, Yahoo has shown that it has no faith in its own online advertising capabilities and thus has admitted tactical defeat in the marketplace as far as advertising is concerned.
“Steve Ballmer’s words are going to haunt Yahoo for a long time. He sounded ominous in the press release: “I still believe even today that our offer remains the only alternative put forward that provides your stockholders full and fair value for their shares…By failing to reach an agreement with us, you and your stockholders have left significant value on the table. But clearly a deal is not to be.””
I feel Yahoo is soon going to be a history!!!!
Yeah..Om Malik is the final word on this