***"For instance, the mail reassures west coasters that Microsoft intends to keep Yahoo!'s Silicon Valley offices and that parts of the company's brand are likely to survive the takeover."***

That would be the "!", then.

at the end of the day, most mergers turn out to be failures... So here's to the next AOL time warner...

Both companies, including MS (46b is not a joke) goes... dead. Yes, I speak about one great mistake which MS could do to commit suicide.

Yahoo is a FreeBSD and open source, engineer powered huge services company. Not just a search engine. For example, I have found this article from their new my yahoo module.

It would be really sad if market completely left to Google, the fake "good guys" but if this deal works, it will happen.

Amiga, Atari, Apple (pre Sjobs come back) were all gigantic, untouchable companies. They made one, single mistake and went down like Titanic. Believe me, if you told someone that Atari will go completely dead in 5-6 years back in 1984, they would laugh at your face. $46 billion is not like some money MS can say "oh doesn't work". If it doesn't work, takes MS down with it. There are company CEO's at Yahoo blog comments speaking about taking their 300 websites hosting elsewhere if MS deal works. Yes, with their real name and company names.

Just by making the initial offer Microsoft have done a very good job of finishing off Yahoo!

If they accept the offer - bye bye Yahoo!

If they reject it - bye bye Yahoo!

They accept the offer and get swallowed by Microsoft.

They reject it and Yahoo disintegrates as a result of destabilisation, uncertainty, greedy tossers sueing them 'cause the people who actually run the company have lost them the opportunity to line their pockets, staff unease at the future, the list can be as long as the speculation here and on Slashdot.

The result in either case is a "win" for Microsoft.

They've taken a leaf from The Al Qaeda Manual - How To Win By Making The Enemy Do What You Want

Make them spend millions imposing extra "security", make their populations feel like criminals through continuous surveillance etc, etc.

As they say, "Simple, but effective."

But what will MS really win?

An acquisition works when both parties emerge stronger (the whole is greater than the sum of its parts). Overused words like synergy come to mind.

MS and acquisitions just don't work together. Probably less than 10% of MS acquisitions have been fruitful. hotmail etc etc.

MS have failed dismally in any attempts to diversify. Zune anyone? The only diversification that seems to be working (slightly) is Xbox and Halo, but those are hardly making serious money (last time I looked they were making losses).

Both Yahoo and MS are falling behind in the value-added webby space (search, webmail,...) Two sinking ships might float a little longer if tied together but they're still sinking. There is no lock-in to seach, but there is a bit to groups and email.

Neither MS nor Yahoo have done annything interesting in the last 2 years.

MS + Yahoo are hardly stronger together. You'll see a momentary up-tick in their search numbers etc but the downward trend will continue.

This deal could not be better for Google than if Google were doing the matchmaking themselves. Sure Google must put in a few rumbles, but that's just to keep up the charade.

Ballmer is completely Google obsessed and that is the reason he'll do anything to try take on Google: buy Yahoo, buy Danger. In both cases he does not seem to have a plan that takes these acquistions to a useful place. All he sees is that they might be weapons in the Googlefight.

Perhaps MS should rather put their energy into making Vista good.

MS is huge and have huge momentum so they won't keel over today or tomorrow. It will take them a lot longer. In 10 years I expect to see MS on the scrap heap with Digital, NCR, ICL, Novell and other once great names.

what happens when you take two companies whose products suck and merge them?

Personally, I don't think the suckmeter goes that high...

I chose Paris for obvious reasons

funniest phrase in the full email [linked from the original article]...

"...Microsoft’s culture of innovation..."

my name's kevin johnson - goodnight!

So MS are behaving like the deal is done, and some US morons are suing Yahoo for keeping the technological world safe for a little longer.

Great.

I'm betting the geniuses that are suing Yahoo have no idea about the implications of MS and Yahoo merging.

You do understand the "genius/moron" shareholders you talk about who are suing Yahoo are only interested in getting the most for their money; right? That is their job! Not some technical (or looking at many people's comments, emotional) agenda about the rights and wrongs of it all!

These exclamations are great!

I'm stunned how a shareholder, or group of shareholders, could sue the company for doing their jobs... unless the board went against a *majority* vote of controlling stock. Don't like what they're doing? Vote their replacement. Or sell your stock and buy M$.

Cockwads.

Quoth Keivn Johnson:

'Microsoft is a growing company and needs staff "throughout the company as a whole".'

If Minimsft ever needed any notice that the time had come to start working on his résumé, this is surely it?

Microsoft is a 'growing company', apparently, Mr Mini.... So says one of those b*st*rds that troughed themselves at last year's SPSA binge... He says Microsoft needs to hire more people (presumably because some of them still spend less time driving to work, than they do in meetings) so, I'd suggest that Minimsft does his best to reverse that trend, bids his erstwiles farewell, gets himself a job with 'packetstorm', and finally takes that paper bag off his head.

I think that the eWeek/Linux-watch people offer an interesting insight into this deal:

http://www.linux-watch.com/news/NS8001941484.html

This deal will be catastrophic for MS in the medium/long term, I'm all for it.

are suing for reasons mentioned above: they are owed a responsibility by the board to return money on their investment. The company is NOT owned by the board, it is owned by the shareholders. Period. If an opportunity to increase value in the company is presented, it is the responsibility of the board to follow through and capitolize on the opportunity - regardless of their personal opinion....

Is M$ trying to re-assure the employees in China, India or Vietnam?

>>Just by making the initial offer Microsoft have done a very good job of finishing off Yahoo!

Like Intuit went down the tubes after MS's bid?

OK, so you own shares in a company

Someone makes an offer that could increase the value of your shared

the board refuses it

you're a little unhappy because your shares aren't worth as much as they could have been - what do you do?

i think it's obvious, you sue the company, with any luck the end result will be the company's reputation ruined and your shares worth nothing

with business logic like that i wonder how they managed to afford shares in the first place

Ah. So these guys decided to whine because they aren't going to make money. Sheesh, the only way they would earn money would be to short-sell the shares, 'coz they're sure to plummet if that happens.

I'm actually gaining respect for Yahoo! because of turning down this deal. The suing shareholders should be made liable if Yahoo goes down, merger or not.

YAHOO by Microsoft will be No. 1. YAHMic!