Download Squad

No, that headline wasn't a mis-print, and those year-old rumors we reported are turning out to be true: Microsoft has asked Yahoo! to resume acquisition talks, and this time the big shiny number is a whopping $50 billion. Redmond must not have been too happy with losing that battle for DoubleClick to Google, as Mashable is reporting that combining both advertising and search powers with Yahoo! are major motivators for rekindling the talks. With a roughly estimated value of $40 billion, Microsoft (worth $280 billion, by comparison) sounds pretty intent on landing a deal. On the other hand, anit-trust concerns could make matters more interesting, though we're a long ways off from that stage of a purchase as significant as this.

From the holy grail perspective of search market share, this buyout would give Microsoft around 27% of the market, versus Google's 65%; not a bad leap ahead, but still a costly one. Something that hasn't been mentioned so far is the fate of MSN and Microsoft's recently revamped Live services; a company only needs so many portals, online services and communities, and it would only make sense that at least some of these properties would be assimilated or de-commissioned if the buyout went down.

A lot of speculation is to be done over a proposal this monumental. But first, we'll have to wait and see if Yahoo! is actually interested.