Microsoft, Yahoo! and Facebook?
I sincerely hope the rumors about Microsoft trying to buy Facebook can be dismissed as the rumblings of a delusional journalist who lost the Microsoft-Yahoo! field day story.
The story is old and not worth talking about anymore, But I’m afraid I’m with Arrington on this one. Sooner or later Yahoo! will be Microsoft’s.
Let me explain.
By walking away from any deal Ballmer, who I don’t like but most certainly isn’t an idiot, managed to make Jerry Yang and the rest of the board look like !#@./ in front of their shareholders.
According to Yahoo!’s SEC filings the board is re-elected every year in its entirety rather than in a staggered fashion like most sensible company do.
Can you see my point? I think by walking on the deal Ballmer just set the stage for a proxy fight - And with Microsoft influence and money I can’t see how can they fail to get their own board elected.
Once their board is in they can come back to the negotiation table with a lower offer and push it through.
I guess these are just the rumblings of a blogger who missed the story completely.
Tags: Acquisition, Arrington, Bid, Deal, Facebook, Jerry Yang, Microsoft, Proxy Fight, SEC, Steve Ballmer, TechCrunch, Thoughts, Yahoo
May 9, 2008 at 2:47 am
[...] just pop up randomly (very often) without some credibility, especially when it makes sense as a ploy to pressure Yahoo. With that said, I still feel the need to point out why this won’t work. Call it abuse of the [...]
May 15, 2008 at 8:14 am
[...] The Big Deal Perfection of means and confusion of aims… « Microsoft, Yahoo! and Facebook? [...]