Microsoft-Yahoo! deal back on the table
Rumors were running rampant this week after it was reported that Microsoft executives had flown to Silicon Valley on a mission to take over Yahoo!’s search engine. Several well-known technology blogs, picked up on the incident immediately.
According to the All Things Digital blog, Steve Ballmer himself is heading up the talks.
Details of the mega-deal have not been revealed, but scuttlebutt has it that Yahoo! could receive as much as a $3 billion down payment and a cut of the advertising revenue from there are on out. Undisclosed sources are saying the deal is imminent.
Yahoo!’s chief executive Carol Bartz has said in the past that she is amenable to a deal, but only if Microsoft can come up with “boatloads of money”. Bartz herself confirmed that the two giants were holding discussions back in May.
The two companies need to get together in order to compete with Google who controls the search market in the US with a huge 65% market share. Yahoo! only commands 19.6% market share and Microsoft a measly 8.4%.
“Separately they’re only fighting each other, instead of winning from Google. They’ve got to do something together,” commented Jack Neele, of Robeco investment bank.
Officially, the two companies are refusing to comment at this point.
Thanks to www.telegraph.co.uk for the above quote. For more information about this article, visit their web site.