Microsoft Bids to Buy Yahoo! for $44.6 Billion

Microsoft Acquires Yahoo Big news today! Microsoft has proposed to acquire Yahoo! through an open letter sent by Steve Ballmer to Yahoo’s board of Directors. The deal will be valued at 44.6 billion in cash and stock. This deal breaks down to $31 per stock, providing a 62% premium to the current trading price of Yahoo’s stock ($19.18 yesterday).

Microsoft’s CEO, Steve Ballmer writes, "We have great respect for Yahoo!, and together we can offer an increasingly exciting set of solutions for consumers, publishers and advertisers while becoming better positioned to compete in the online services market. We believe our combination will deliver superior value to our respective shareholders and better choice and innovation to our customers and industry partners"

This deal will combine two of the internet’s super powers, leaving Google aside. Yahoo’s stocks are down, and they recently laid off 1,000 out of their total 12,000 employees. It makes complete sense for Microsoft to take benefit out of the situation to fulfill their 10 year old dream of acquiring Yahoo!

Yahoo! surely has some juicy assets like Del.icio.us and Flickr. Correct me if I am wrong, but Yahoo! Mail still rules over Gmail (in terms of users). Microsoft definitely wants Yahoo! for their assets and not for their man power. I wouldn’t be surprised, if MS decided lay some more Yahoo! employees after the deal.

Microsoft has made smart move. Are you in favor of this deal?

Read: Press Release

This post was published by on February 1, 2008

About the Author: Thilak Rao works as a Social Media Expert. He is one of the first professional bloggers from India, and he loves to write, travel and click photos. Follow him on Twitter @thilak

  • http://youngIM.net Labanon

    Really hot news! Haha I think Microsoft made the correct decision!

  • http://sunnytalkstech.blogspot.com Saptarshi

    Just imagine how much traffic a combined MS-Yahoo will have. Excellent timing from MS with the Yahoo layoff and loss announcements…

    A merger would definitely mean that Google will have to improvise now!!

  • http://green-flamingo.com Nathaniel

    I think microsoft was good in this decision. This is big news. And 10 years!

  • http://technodorm.com Fahad

    Wow, this is some big news. I saw it on CNN today as well. I guess it will be good for Microsoft. They can really benefit from this deal!

  • http://www.techbray.com Techie

    Nice move from microsoft…..

  • http://www.slblogs.org Niro

    Yea It is big news… I wrote a post on that too in my Blog. SL Blogs He he .. You know what I think Open Source people might worry On this.. Good Luck MS..

  • http://www.codenamesearch.com/upcoming.php Rapidshare search

    Hope this one works out. Google needs a bigger competitor IMHO.

  • http://www.ipencil.net duez

    will make the 2 conqueror more fight!

  • http://www.evawhite.com Eva White

    That’s some BIG news. I am in favour as well as against this deal. I have known yahoo since the time I have started knowing internet. So if the deal works good for yahoo, I am for it otherwise against.

  • http://abhisays.com Abhishek Kumar

    This merger will be dangerous for the survival of open source technologies. A consolidation of the Microsoft and Yahoo networks could shift a massive amount of infrastructure from open source technologies to Microsoft platforms