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Microsoft, Yahoo and Where the Money Is

Microsoft’s Offer To Buy Yahoo For $44.6 Billion is likely to turn in large part on whether the founders, who still hold a great deal of stock, go with their investors who want to take the money and run. I’m betting they will, reluctantly, though I still believe Yahoo could have a great future as a stand-alone company. More than almost any other Web company, Yahoo understands aggregation and the best of bottom-up media. Microsoft barely has a clue.

But Google is getting pretty worrisome in its own way — too big and powerful to trust. We need large and small counterweights, and perhaps a Microsoft-Yahoo combination will be one of them.

It’s worth noting, meanwhile, that the offer of slightly less than $45 billion isn’t much higher than ExxonMobil’s 2007 profits. The juxtaposition in today’s NY Times, below, is pretty startling.

Msftyahooexxon

1 Comment on “Microsoft, Yahoo and Where the Money Is”

  1. #1 ScribbleSheet Blog
    on Feb 3rd, 2008 at 7:05 am

    […] instead of customers getting what they want they get what they are given. If Microsoft does buy Yahoo it spells consolidation in search and online advertising. Increasingly people will either have to […]