Friday, 1 February 2008 9:14 pm
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1 comments
The wwworld is about to change sooner than later. Microsoft's take over attempt buyout offer is bound to succeed, one way or another. I doubt there is a way for Yahoo! to deflect that one. This new offer by Microsoft would make the Y! shareholders very happy; should Yahoo! decline MSFT's offer, the shareholders would probably sue Yahoo! for doing so thereby not acting on their interest, or at the very least could give Y!'s management some very tough time. Indeed, according to the mail sent by Steven Ballmer to Yahoo! board of directors:
"Depending on the nature of your response, Microsoft reserves the right to pursue all necessary steps to ensure that Yahoo!’s shareholders are provided with the opportunity to realize the value inherent in our proposal."In other words, Microsoft will let the shareholders know that shooting the offer down would harm them financially and the shareholders will of course demand the sale anyway.
We live in interesting times.
Μάρκο,
One of the cornerstones of the internet is change --- or rather I should state, it has been until now, for the ongoing efforts by many major industrial players on the legislative front (viz. patents, copyright, net neutality) threaten to stiffle innovation.
Still, it would thus be unthinkable to believe that a company like Yahoo!, or Microsoft or, indeed, Google for that matter could remain at the top indefinitely. In the same way Netscape rose and fell, the dark ages of Internet Explorer's domination of the Web gradually became part of web history, so has Yahoo!'s time come and gone. Change in ingrained wihtin the very fabric of the internet.
Still, I am not that convinced that Microsoft's offer will eventually be accepted (there are, as you probably know, several ways Yahoo! could retaliate and --- as we all witnessed in the past few days --- we should not discount Google's part in this process).
But even if it does --- as it seems it might --- that doesn't necessarily mean much about the future of the internet, the future of competition, the power of the join venture. M&As are often problematic, and I, along with many others, believe that Microsoft's acquisition of Yahoo! might be more so than expected.
It's not clear how the Y! shareholders would react to a retaliatory move by Y!'s management and I'm certain that many of the (institutional) shareholder of Y! have learnt their lesson from DEC/Compaq/HP and a handful of other major M&As that went sour.
Time will tell if any of this is right, I guess.
My 2’