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Google Inc. Chief Executive Eric Schmidt called Yahoo Inc. CEO Jerry Yang to offer his company's help in any effort to thwart Microsoft Corp.'s unsolicited $44.6 billion bid for Yahoo, say people familiar with the matter.
After several months of discussion and speculation, the Microsoft-Yahoo buyout deal is apparently off. At least, that's what both Microsoft and Yahoo announced over the weekend. There is some speculation that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer made his announcement in order to topple Yahoo's share price, in order to make another offer at a lower price.
Microsoft Corp. has yet to convince Yahoo Inc. to agree to a friendly takeover, but the software company is already hiring lobbyists to help it convince regulators to let the deal _ hostile if it has to be _ go through.
Option investors bet heavily on Monday that Yahoo might strike a deal of some sort with Microsoft Corp, spurred on in part by pressure from activist shareholder Carl Icahn.
Microsoft has proposed an alternative deal for Yahoo, a complex transaction that would include just buying Yahoo's search business, rather than a full buyout, a person familiar with the discussions said on Monday.
One of the most surprising things about Microsoft's bid for Yahoo is that if successful it will make Microsoft one of the two or three largest users of open source software in the world. Google is certainly the largest. The National Security Agency may or may not be second (only the spooks know for sure), but if it is then by my estimate that would make Yahoo the third.
Google Inc. raised the specter of Microsoft Corp. using its proposed $42 billion acquisition of Yahoo Inc. to gain illegal control over the Internet, underscoring the online search leader's queasiness about its two biggest rivals teaming up.
