Our board responds to Microsoft

Posted February 11th, 2008 at 8:42 am by Nicki Dugan, Blog Editor

 22 Comments / Filed in: Trends & News

You might have read this by now, but our Board has unanimously concluded that Microsoft’s proposal is not in the best interests of Yahoo! and our stockholders, believing that it substantially undervalues Yahoo!. Here’s the press release and updated FAQ.

Nicki Dugan
Blog Editor

Tagged: microsoft, news

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22 Comments Add your own

Technical Writing Geek | February 11th, 2008 at 9:04 am

Here’s a message of support for Yahoo’s recent actions and a possible future for Yahoo.

http://www.chrisblanc.org/blog/information-technology/2008/02/11/yahoo-circling-the-bowl/

Summary:

“Dear Yahoo,

We like you, and hope you come back.

Signed,
Those who browse you”

Greg | February 11th, 2008 at 10:12 am

Congratulations!!! Smart decision.
(Still, I am waiting for a contact, Nicki)

Homer | February 11th, 2008 at 2:02 pm

Congratulations guys! I don’t know what I’d do if Yahoo was taken over by a big corp like MS. Kudos to you guys ^_^

One of your loyal users | February 11th, 2008 at 3:07 pm

I’m sure the BOD made a strategically wise decision. Yahooooo!!!

Adam | February 11th, 2008 at 8:21 pm

sounds like a familiar story:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_1995_Jan_5/ai_15994579

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E05E6DB1F39F937A15752C0A960958260

the real question is… do yahoo shareholders want to cash out now (something they could have done long ago) or do they want to hang on and see what happens when terrible management is flushed and techies return to turn the company around. it certainly worked for apple… which is now trading at about 6-7X (not counting splits) what it was when the big boys were licking their chops…

microsoft stock is not making any serious movements. but yahoo stock certainly has to the potential to… the shareholders have to ask themselves, do they want a bluechip-like stock, or do they want a high risk/high reward play in the internet sector. somehow i think yahoo investors are the latter.

Ramesh | February 11th, 2008 at 10:06 pm

Great decision : )

We were so excited to hear this news and this is a very bold move from Yahoo!

We only hope Yahoo! doesn’t accept the offer even if M$ comes with a higher amount ($40/share or even more - say “HELL NO” to Microhoo).

We would like to see Yahoo! as an independent company and that is good for the internet and that is good for the world.

Let’s start yodeling again…

Yahooooo!!!!!

Jonah Emery | February 12th, 2008 at 9:39 am

Good. I think Yahoo is an important voice of independance on the net right now.

In my opinion it’s one of the few remaining portals around worth using still.

Enno Wein | February 12th, 2008 at 11:26 am

Hi,

I have been a paying Yahoo! customer for about 10 years.
My companies’ (>100 employees) web hosting is entirely
done through Yahoo.

If Microsoft acquires Yahoo! we will cancel
all business with Yahoo!/Microsoft.

Regards,
Enno Wein
President
Instigate

Babak | February 12th, 2008 at 12:24 pm

Smart move! at least you know that the offer will go up anyway. Plus, fewer options for the consumers mean low quality and less competition in the business.

Joel Payne | February 13th, 2008 at 3:26 am

A YAHOO-VERIZON-EBAY merger would be BETTER!
IMHO. Yahoo took a hit because they shut down many of the things the good stuff that made them Yahoo! They screwed up Yahoo Clubs…. Yahoo used to have a HUGE following on the discussion boards ( on news.yahoo.com ) but they closed it “temporarily” and then never brought it back…. WHY??????

In terms of Yahoo Instant Messenger, it has nothing now but SPAM since they merged their Instant Messaging product with Microsoft Messenger (on the backend.)

Now the spammers are having a field day because it patches through to Yahoo too….. Nobody is willingly choosing to opt for Microsoft’s products…. That should tell them something……

Yahoo would no doubt end up worse under M$…. Heck MSNBC was suppose to be “good”….
But no… NBC had to take their service back…

Hotmail was supposed to end up “better” too under Microsoft…
As you can see…Nothing doing…..

Yahoo also has had the Unix (FreeBSD) crowds backing them for years. A Microsoft buyout will do nothing more but firmly place the Unix Backers. (Thus the Apple backers too.) firmly into Google’s camp too…..

Verizon or AT&T could be a better deal…. Or Google buying out Yahoo now that would be a sweet deal…..

Verizon and AT&T use Yahoo to power their Internet services so they would win out in a buy of Yahooo. Esp. Verizon which is rolling out FiOS and could use Yahoo as a nice content backend for their Fiber-optics service…. Yahoo would be a sweeet content deal for Verizon…..

The current co-branded provider sites.

http://www.att.yahoo.com/
http://www.verizon.yahoo.com/

And it would be good for them too because Yahoo has partners around the world…

British Telecom
http://www.bt.yahoo.com/

Rogers Cable in Canada etc.
http://www.rogers.yahoo.com/

If Yahoo wants to be company in the future they will need to buy their own U.S. distribution network… That’s the main problem with Yahoo…. Their next problem? They’ve stopped being innovators. I don’t see anymore killer applications/services being created by Yahoo. In fact Yahoo has been scaling back services over the years.

I remember when Yahoo announced they were buying DialPad. I thought great Yahoo could do some great stuff with that… They merged it with Yahoo IM. But they haven’t really added anymore killer features to Yahoo IM. SPAM has increased by leaps and bounds on it. Soo much so I don’t bother to leave Yahoo IM open anymore. (My friends are starting to do the same.)

When I heard TIVO was going to have Yahoo features integrated I thought NICE! more Yahoo services on my TV now… The convergence of TV and Computer may finally come about under that deal. But nothing much further has gone on between those companies. Yahoo I hear even dropped Photos which was one of their services that worked on TIVO.

When Yahoo announced their partnership with Wikipedia I expected to see more good things…. Nothing, really fruitful yet has come from that either. I’ve also come to watch competitors buy-out key stuff that Yahoo let slip by.

MySpace’s parent company went to Fox.

Facebook has gone to Micro$oft.

Blogger went to Google.

Live.com went to M$.

Craig’sList went to Ebay.

YouTube went to Google.

Skype went to Ebay.

Mapquest went to AOL

GrandCentral went to Google

Paypal went to Ebay

etc. etc.

Anyway, I’ve thought of some deals which could still save Yahoo…

Buying their own pipeline, so that they have their own customers to draw monthly revenue from… Like by offering services. Perhaps QWEST or FairPoint Communications (The company which Verizon sold their New Hampshire, Maine, and Vermont telephone network to.)

Perhaps the buyout of CableVision in New York City area. It would give Yahoo a market to also develop new Cable TV set-top boxes or the like…

A merger with Ebay (as first proposed back in 1999) could save Yahoo. Ebay gets millions of page hits daily that Yahoo could translate into even more (joint website) visits. Imagine seeing a small box showing Ebay auctions closing soon on Yahoo. It would make up for the marked failure of Yahoo Auctions. And would bolster Yahoo’s marketplace against Google’s upstart “Checkout” service…

Also having Yahoo-Ebay-Paypal under the same roof would be a force to recon- with…

Also, Yahoo needs to find a partner or create a unit to push more of their Yahoo services on cell phones. And at a more accelerated pace. Buddy-Beacon type services are in their upstart and would be a nice addition to Yahoo if they can pull it off.

Yahoo is becoming stale, that is why they’re lagging.

Com’mon raise your head Yahoo!!! Do something!!! You’re losing your touch…. The leadership of Yahoo must be getting too old… They’re not forward thinking anymore.

My thought is about when Yahoo Clubs was killed… Back when EGroups.com was purchased by Yahoo. Yahoo killed clubs and merged parts of it with EGroups.com…

Microsoft may kill off Live.com or Yahoo to merge those together and in the end people will probably defect because the separate services they grew to love would no longer be what they initially fell in love with…

When MSN-Canada sought to merge with http://www.Sympatico.ca They did that same thing… Killed off Sympatica.ca’s website (Which was owned by Bell Canada.) and they just sent all the traffic to MSN.ca basically…

The semi-good news though is if Microsoft lays off mass numbers of people at Yahoo, it could create a backlash because Microsoft will be creating a spawn of new people that will depart their company and go-off to create new companies that may JUST— choose to complement Google rather then Microsoft or Yahoo and if the Microsoft-Yahoo audience dwindles— they’ll be back to square one fighting to try and increase falling advertising dollars.

Anyway this isn’t the first time…. Anyone remember Steve Case standing up and telling a huge audience about when Microsoft said they wanted to buy AOL?

In his words:

http://www.businessweek.com/1998/29/b358…

”
On May 11, 1993, CEO Stephen M. Case of America Online Inc. (AOL) found himself face to face with Microsoft Corp. Chairman William H. Gates III. AOL, then the third-largest online-service provider, had gone public only a year earlier, after some fairly rocky beginnings. Gates–the most powerful man in Corporate America–was telling Case in a deadpan tone: ”I can buy 20% of you or I can buy all of you. Or I can go into this business myself and bury you.”
”

The fact of the matter is. Micro$haft NEEEDS this deal more than Yahoo needs Micro$haft…. Anyway
Yahoo has tons of potential suitors.

Ebay:
Then you’d see Yahoo, Ebay, Craigs’List, PayPal, Half.com, Overstock.com etc. etc. all under the same roof. Ebay would easily make up for the failed Yahoo Auctions attempt. And also Yahoo could rebrand the Ebay Stores of Half.com or Overstock.com to “Yahoo Stores” or “Yahoo Mall” or something and reap the big bucks from that. Also PayPal would be a big competitor to Google’s upstart “CheckOut” shopping cart business.

Sony:
Sony Entertainment would be another potential suitor. Yahoo could become the backend for the Sony PlayStation like how there’s an XBox Live. And Yahoo chat could be embeded in the Sony Playstation for realtime game chat etc. Sony phones could be outfitted with Yahoo IMer etc.

New potential trailer movies could be posted on Yahoo.com. New Game releases. etc.

ClearChannel (Old Media) or XM/Sirius (New Media):
I keep hearing Yahoo is all about Advertising. I was walking home in the snow and looked upto notice a HUGE Clear Channel billboard. I thought to myself, ClearChannel would give Yahoo some nice Advertising coverage. But it is considered old Media. Perhaps a Sirius buy would work better (As that is considered new media.)

EarthLink: This could be a quick subtle buy at some point. A Bite sized ISP. Yahoo could have EarthLink customers as their own customers and provide them content along with AT&T/ Verizon etc. Or if those providers are afraid of potential competition from EarthLink divide them up between AT&T/Verizon at a slight premium.

ViaCom:
Viacom has no large central network like how Disney/ABC does. Disney purchased the Go network and powers everything off there. Well Viacom has such stations as Nickelodeon, MTV, VH1, BET, etc. etc. and they could put their content on Yahoo.

Rupert Murdoch - the Fox TV empire might want to make a bid too…

A US phone company might like to snap up Yahoo. It would give them a kick@$$ platform for Online media that they could call their own content. Plus Yahoo’s deals with outside companies could be another source of revenue….

AOL/Time Warner could make a bid. After AOL-TW failed to bring in the large audience they could make a go of it again with Yahoo and see if they can get things done right this time….

Another Suitor possibly from Europe might swoop down last minute. Sort of like Terra from Space snatched up Lycos etc…. You never know what might happen.

Give me 6 months at Yahoo in Corporate Development. I’d have the stock value up. I’d have traffic up… I’d have a reinvigorated company that is on top again with tons of suitors lined up all down the hall ways.

John Frohrip | February 13th, 2008 at 12:50 pm

Going from Bill Gates to Rupert Murdoch would be like jumping from thr frying pan to the fire. If you go with the Fox Garbageman, you will lose my affiliation

Amy | February 13th, 2008 at 12:56 pm

If you guys sell out to News Corp, I am going to terminate my email account. No way am I going to entrust my personal email to the man who owns Fox News!

Sam Lanahan | February 13th, 2008 at 1:49 pm

Any connection to News Corp would be a disaster. Yang got too rich! Now he thinks like a conservative (Republican). Money corrupts!

jacob | February 13th, 2008 at 8:44 pm

i am glad you are not selling to microsoft. yahoo! can and should stand on its own. i would fear what a microsoft leadership would do to the opensource projects you support.

Laura | February 14th, 2008 at 10:50 am

Yahoo people . . . I want Yahoo . . . I Love Yahoo . . . I have been a Yahoodian for over 8 years now . . . I am just a little guy . . what can us little business or individuals do to help you stay a true Yahoo . . . I would gladly order annual services if I knew it would keep the merger from Microsoft a fact . .

I’m your biggest fan! lol

Laura | February 14th, 2008 at 10:53 am

HEY WAIT LET S PRACTICE TOGETHER . . . JUST SAY NO! . .

Joel Payne | February 18th, 2008 at 9:42 pm

Few more suggestions to Yahoo since last post.

I keep hearing from European newspapers that Yahoo is looking to buyout AOL? I’m wondering if Yahoo has looked at this indepth???? AOL = competition to a number— of Yahoo’s partners.

From Comcast, to Verizon, to AT&T. An AOL buyout could end up severing Yahoo’s partners in the deal. I had suggested Earthlink because nobody really considers Earthlink a threat but AOL now? You could be barking up a dangerous tree Yahoo. Choose wisely. And besure to consult your partners so they don’t turn their backs on you.

Another deal Yahoo could— look at. Recently Microsoft announced they would be buying Danger, Inc. (The software maker or T-Mobile’s handheld Instant Messaging device known as the Sidekick. Well– Yahoo if you are very serious about not merging with Micro$haft, (as I hope you are.) Then you should look at acquiring the Ogo device. They are BIG in Europe. The Sidekick is big in the USA. But the OGO is big in Europe…. See it at http://www.ogo.com/ It is made by IXI Mobile ( http://www.ixi.com/ )… A deal like that could put you on completely equal footing with Micro$haft.

Anyway since the SideKick was acquired by Microsoft I’ve since called up T-Mobile and told them this is the last month I would be keeping my account for the SideKick and I’m looking at moving towards the Ogo now… AT&T Wireless (The pre-Cingular one.) if you can remember back used to sell the Ogo but it got lost with the Cingular merger. Anyway I continue to believe Yahoo would be better off without M$….

Chris | February 19th, 2008 at 5:42 pm

In light of the Microsoft takeover bid, I believe yahoo! should’ve asked Microsoft for a vision for the Microsoft-Yahoo! alliance and what roles Yahoo! would play under such an alliance before either accepting or rejecting the bid. This would allow the Yahoo! board as well as the shareholder to gain the necessary information on whether the alliance would be beneficial for Yahoo! and thus accepting or rejecting the bid on that basis. The bid was unsolicited and out of the blue, no one really expects the other party to accept it on the spot without asking any questions. On the other hand, a rejection to a company such as Microsoft might not pan out very well with them, whom you wouldn’t want to offend one way or another.

Now that the rejection had already happened, there was no way that it could’ve been taken back. It may require some creativity to make this work, talk about vision, not about money. Money will come as a result of superb vision, and I believe Yahoo! already knew that!

robert merry | February 26th, 2008 at 8:41 am

good microsoft doesnt need to do everything
i have a yahoo search engine idea that might
bring big profit and traffic
dont know who tell about it please email
me if interested

Joel Payne | February 27th, 2008 at 10:33 am

I was right Yahoo, you could prob. buy up QWest.

Newsmaker: A Qwest for survival
Date: Published: February 27, 2008, 4:00 AM PST

http://www.news.com/A-Qwest-for-survival/2008-1034_3-6232125.html?tag=nefd.top

Paul McCartney | March 5th, 2008 at 6:42 am

ANYONE taking over Yahoo! is unacceptable. Imagine the nightmare when Microsoft changes the Yahoo! OS from BSD to something like Server2008… oh what fun when worldwide crashes shut down email.. IM.. etc etc. So? what happens if Time Warner makes a higher offer? I don’t know if most people realize the ramifications of ANY takeover. Think about the death of Yahoo! as we have all come to know and LOVE it :-(

Adnan | March 22nd, 2008 at 12:51 pm

Hey, word’s out again of Microsoft trying to move in and take over Yahoo.

I read an article on Bloomberg.

I think Microsoft doesn’t stand a chance against Google. It’s only scared chicken of what would happen if Google would start an operating system and move into it’s territory and that’s why they’re flapping their wings left and right.

If they really were into search, they would of gotten in long, long ago.

Plus nobody really cares too much for Microsoft either. It’s a company which doesn’t have much public acceptance.

So IMO, just keep Yahoo as it is or try to work out some other deals or strategies.