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Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer on Friday said that Microsoft was "not interested" in making a new offer for internet company Yahoo, despite Yahoo's share price currently sitting at less than half what Microsoft initially offered.Speaking at a Committee for Economic Development of Australia lunch in Sydney, Ballmer said: "Look, we made an offer; we made another offer. It was clear that Yahoo didn't want to sell the business to us, and we moved on."Ballmer said other deals with Yahoo had also been unsuccessful. "We tried at one point to do a partnership around search, not advertising. That didn't work either, so we moved on and they moved on."
"We are not interested in going back and re-looking at an acquisition," he said. "I don't know why they would be either, frankly."
Earlier stories
Yahoo CEO, Yang, Says to Microsoft, 'Buy Yahoo' [webmasterworld.com]
MS will buy Yahoo soon, but with much less money that MS used to offer.
Stupid Yahoo.
Yahoo is not tanking, at least not yet, but their value has been seriously diminished. Where it goes from here will be blips on our radars, big time.
We need TWO or more players to make it work... mono will not work, history shows that.
yahoo is average in everything and nothing but locally oriented - look, they never managed to get international with their advertising program in all those years. biggest portal on the net? they are completely irrelevant outside the u.s.
Ballmer would be better off with investing into new players, products and strategies.
Yahoo is an utter waste and would weaken MS a lot.
Search experts a yahoo are the worst in the industry. Even new operators like cuil show better results what may point at a core misunderstanding of the internet with Jerry Y and his lot.
Even new operators like cuil show better results what may point at a core misunderstanding of the internet with Jerry Y and his lot.
Seriously?
From my own searches over the past few months I would say you'd be hard to pressed to find any search engine worse than Cuil at this point. Certainly not Yahoo.
And Yang? Criticize his rejection of the MS offer all you like (after all Corporations only exist to make money for shareholders right?) but how can you say that the founder of the web's first large directory and the current most visited portal on the internet doesn't understand the net?
[edit: typo]
[edited by: IanKelley at 8:57 pm (utc) on Nov. 9, 2008]
M$ are walking away for all the wrong reasons ("An M$ Spurned ..."), but I am sure it's for the best for them, and for the web.
As for Yahoo! - when they bravely resisted the Blob, they had no idea just how bad things were going to be for them selves (let alone the stock market!), and they are now desperate. I hope for their sake that they survive - and for the sake of competition. But I wouldn't bet on it.
Google played a blinder; didn't bid, but made it clear they'd do what they could to stop the marriage. And it worked. By the time they walked away, M$ had backed off.
Good Luck Yahoo! - but I suspect a merger with someone else, or a severe slimming session will be the minimum needed for survival.
how can you say that the founder of the web's first large directory and the current most visited portal on the internet doesn't understand the net?
Yahoo once had a leading position and right now Yang`s email, search and advertising are not competitive at all. Google beats them by far at every possible level. Yahoo mail is by far the worst in the world.
Yang, AOL and other early icons have simply become to arrogant and lazy. So they are bound to disappear if they can`t catch the curve. The Internet is a fast race in which even MS had not been able to catch up despite unlimited cash.
Google rules because they are simply a lot smarter than Ballmer and Yang together. Very simple.
picking them up at $12-$15/share.
The forthcoming recession might finish Yahoo completely and Ballmer can sit and wait to see them crash.
No need to buy anything. Best managers have already left and Yahoo hasn`t been innovative since ages.
