The New York Post is reporting that Microsoft is ramping up pursuit of a deal to take over Yahoo, with Microsoft seeking to re-enter formal negotiations. The two companies have held informal talks over the years, but now is said to be different, with Microsoft signaling a sense of urgency.
In talks earlier this year, Microsoft made an offer, however Yahoo declined at the time. Although it is unknown what figure Microsoft offered Yahoo, Wall Street analysts say Yahoo is worth about $50 billion — in other words, not cheap.
I find it interesting that Microsoft is displaying a sense of urgency in wanting to gobble up Yahoo; certainly they can’t be worried about Google beating them to the punch like with DoubleClick. Google is a very wealthy company, spending billions for YouTube and DoubleClick, but I think $50 billion might be a bit out of their range. So apart from Google, who else would want it? I guess someone else who could afford it would be Rupert Murdoch, but would he want it? Who knows.
At any rate, I think it would be a pretty good move for Microsoft if they did some consolidation. For example, MSN Messenger is the most popular IM client worldwide, with Yahoo at #2, but imagine combining the two services? Also, Yahoo Webmail is the most widely used worldwide, with MSN Hotmail at #2, and those could be combined as well to utterly dominate the world of Webmail. So there are a lot of different possibilities should this deal happen, and although it probably won’t, it’s still fun to imagine what if…
2 Comments
I am not able to visualize $50 billion. You’re right Jon, it would be a pretty good for Microsoft. But also it would be the holy terror for other ones…
I don’t think any of us can visualize $50 billion, that’s more than we’ll ever see in five lifetimes, combined! lol