buyout posts

Microsoft has no plans to buy Yahoo! (this time)

by Brad Linder Nov 7th 2008

A few seconds after Google kicked Yahoo! to the curb by severing an agreement to place AdSense ads on Yahoo! search pages, folks started speculating that Yahoo! might go crawling back to Microsoft. The two companies had engaged in extensive talks earlier this year. But Yahoo! rejected Microsoft's initial buyout offer and everything went downhill from there.

Now Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has a message for Yahoo! "We moved on." Ballmer says Microsoft might be willing to look at a partnership that would allow Micorosft to use Yahoo! Search or other technologies. But the software giant has no plans to purchase the internet portal.

Tags: buyout, microsoft, search, yahoo

Filed under: Business, Social Software, Search

Twitter reportedly buying Summize

by Jay Hathaway Jul 7th 2008

There have been reports flying around Twitter and several prominent blogs that Twitter is making a move to acquire Summize, a popular Twitter search engine. In case this is the first you're hearing about Summize, here's a rundown of what it does. It can search Twitter for any string -- most importantly, an @name -- which makes it indispensable when Twitter's tracking function is down. Second, it aggregates and lists the most popular search terms, so you can get a sense of the Twitter zeitgeist.

It's too early to speculate about what effect the acquistion could have on Twitter itself, or how the resulting service would look with Summize's features integrated. We do love the idea of combining two services we use every day, though. Basically, we're keeping our fingers crossed that these rumors are true.

Tags: acquisition, business, buyout, Summize, Twitter

Filed under: Internet, News, Web services, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo!, Search

Yahoo may align with Google against Microsoft's takeover proposal

by Danny Mendez Feb 5th 2008

On Friday, we reported that Microsoft was attempting to acquire Yahoo, offering the company $44.6 billion for the takeover. Google isn't taking the new threat lightly, so Google's CEO Eric Schmidt called Yahoo's CEO Jerry Yang on Sunday. Schmidt offered any help he could in order to prevent the buyout. But it's possible this may be a ploy by Yahoo to get Microsoft to raise the bidding price.

The controversy behind the buyout partially stems from the fear that such a move would destroy Google and all other competitors in the long run. Microsoft used a similar method to get Windows users to use Internet explorer instead of Netscape, but Google's destruction may not be Microsoft's intent. Disagreeing with critics, Microsoft says the takeover would create a solid second-place competitor in the Internet search market.

Though we can't predict the future, it's clear Yahoo won't be alone in the future. The question now is: what will Yahoo's future name be? Yahoogle or Microshoo?

Tags: buy out, BuyOut, google, michroshoo, take over, TakeOver, yahoo, yahoogle

Filed under: Internet, Web services, Microsoft, Social Software

Facebook and Microsoft getting cosy?

by Nik Fletcher Jul 14th 2007

There's been persistent rumours for as long as we can remember about Facebook being the object of Yahoo!'s desire, with founder Mark Zuckerberg reportedly turning down offers in the region of $2 BILLION. Yes, two billion dollars. However Microsoft, apparently keen to make inroads with their some-what floundering Windows Live initiatives, is rumoured to be wanting Facebook, and badly. So badly that the price being whispered is around three times the price Yahoo offered: a whopping $6 billion dollars.

As InsideMicrosoft mentions, it makes a lot of sense for Microsoft to be interested in Facebook, however they also fail to mention one other small thing that this might, just might, be about: adverts. Facebook's audience is vast - it's not just University students using Facebook - and the Facebook site would provide an easy way to expand Microsoft's Advertising network onto one of the most popular sites on the web. No doubt it would please a lot of Microsoft Advertising folks to have the massive Facebook network on their books, providing them with an inroad into Google's dominance in web advertising, not to mention a huge exclusive audience for Microsoft to offer advertisers.

As ever, this is all rumours but one thing to note is that, if the Microsoft warchest is opened to buy Facebook, the deal will make a large dent on Microsoft's cash reserves, if these April 2007 figures are anything to go by.

Tags: buyout, facebook, merger, microsoft, rumors

Filed under: Business, Internet, Web services, Microsoft, Yahoo!, Social Software

Microsoft resumes Yahoo! acquisition talks to the tune of $50 billion

by David Chartier May 4th 2007

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.

Tags: acquisition, business, buyout, merger, microsoft, yahoo

Filed under: Audio, Business, Internet, News, Windows, Web services

Napster considers selling itself

by David Chartier Aug 7th 2006

It appears that Napster might be ready to say uncle, ZDNet is reporting. The company has stated they "do not have our heads in the sand regarding an M&A (merger and acquisition) transaction", which is more or less a nice way of saying they just might be licked. Over the march quarter their 512,000 strong subscriber base fell 7 percent as they transitioned to its free website model, but excluding 4,000 university subscriptions, their number of paid subscribers actually grew 26 percent year-over-year.

An analyst from Stifel Nicolaus & Co also cited in ZDNet's article said "Napster's still trying to find a working business model, which is bad from an operating standpoint", also noting that they see an increased likelihood that the company would sell, especially since the possibility came straight down from management.

Either way, things don't sound so good for the renegade-come-legit digital music service. Also of note is their website; it might be the fact that I'm on a Mac, but their site seems dishearteningly bare these days. not even a remnant of the hip Flash site they built when they offered the web-based free model. I guess time will tell what happens to the music libraries of all those subscribing users.

[via iLounge]

Tags: business, buyout, napster, sell, service, site, software, subscribers

Filed under: Microsoft

Microsoft acquires Winternals, Sysinternals

by Jordan Running Jul 18th 2006

Today Microsoft announced that it has acquired Winternals Software, maker of data recovery and protections software, as well as free Windows utility site Sysinternals. The acquisition will include Mark Russinovich, Winternals and Sysinternals founder, who will come to Microsoft as a Technical Fellow, Microsoft's title for "someone whose technical vision, expertise, and world-class leadership is widely recognized." The Winternals web site has a short FAQ about the acquisition, which says Microsoft will be integrating Winternals' technologies into its products, and Russinovich has made a post to his Sysinternals blog which says Sysinternals "will remain for the time being while Microsoft determines the best way to integrate it into its own community efforts, and the tools will continue to be free to download."

Tags: acquisition, buyout, freeware, Mark Russinovich, MarkRussinovich, microsoft, sysinternals, utilities, winternals

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