Tuesday, April 29, 2008
You've probably all read about the Microsoft offer to buy Yahoo. A lot of ink has been spilled talking about it, but I still don't know what to think. I did recently post about a favorite saying of mine, "never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence," but this deal is really testing that saying. Can Microsoft really be that incompetent? Do they really want to exchange $44 billion for the site I use to check the weather forecast?
If they really do want Yahoo, why not wait until a few quarters of the coming ad recession crushes Yahoo stock before making the offer?
According to PwC MoneyTree, in 2007 there were 1245 venture capital investments in the software and media/entertainment sectors totaling $7.1 billion. So for 1/6 the price of Yahoo, they could (in theory) own a good portion of every startup financed in the past year (but not in practice). Or they could purchase all of the goods and services produced by Ecuador for an entire year.
I really hope Microsoft has some kind of evil plan to keep Yahoo paralyzed by a fake offer. Although it would also be funny if Ballmer was a student of the "Gerald Levin School of Purchasing Balance Sheet Goodwill."
If they really do want Yahoo, why not wait until a few quarters of the coming ad recession crushes Yahoo stock before making the offer?
According to PwC MoneyTree, in 2007 there were 1245 venture capital investments in the software and media/entertainment sectors totaling $7.1 billion. So for 1/6 the price of Yahoo, they could (in theory) own a good portion of every startup financed in the past year (but not in practice). Or they could purchase all of the goods and services produced by Ecuador for an entire year.
I really hope Microsoft has some kind of evil plan to keep Yahoo paralyzed by a fake offer. Although it would also be funny if Ballmer was a student of the "Gerald Levin School of Purchasing Balance Sheet Goodwill."
