I’m certain that Jerry Yang had long ago realized that he really fucked up the acquisition by Microsoft. Just a couple of weeks ago at the Web 2.0 summit, Yang said that it would still be in Microsoft’s best interest to acquire Yahoo! That sounds like an admission of failure if I’ve ever heard one.
This was a long time coming. Yahoo! shareholders and employees have suffered long enough, and it is time they get the share value they deserve. Speaking of which, YHOO is trading at around $12, up over $1.20 a share (about 11%) in pre-market trading this morning. Of course, this is a far cry from the $31 a share that Microsoft was offering for Yahoo! just nine months ago. I doubt if Yahoo! will ever make it that high again before someone swoops them up at a lower price.
Money isn’t the most important thing in the world. Why does Microsoft need to add Yahoo! to its stable when it already has MSN Search? This would just remove an important web site from the search-engine competition, not give *us* consumers any added value.
I respectfully disagree. Money is the most important thing in the world for shareholders. Shareholders invest their money to see their investment grow, not to see it tank over 60%. I think that combining MSN and Yahoo! search would have fostered competition more than it would have stifled it. Yahoo! is a distant second to Google and combining MSN and Yahoo! would have helped to close the gap.