Well, my thoughts from last week weren’t far off. After the announcement that Yahoo would cut approximately 5% of it’s workforce, I indicated that a Yahoo/Microsoft merge might be one step closer. Today that has come to fruition. Microsoft has offered to acquire Yahoo for $44.6 Billion, or $31 a share. If the two companies were to merge, they could dominate the online display advertising game and rival Google in search. It seems like this is the only way either company can go up against the Google juggernaut.
Shares of Yahoo shot up nearly 60% in pre-market trading while Microsoft fell 5%. Steve Ballmer said:
“We have great respect for Yahoo, and together we can offer an increasingly exciting set of solutions for consumers, publishers and advertisers while becoming better positioned to compete in the online services market.”
You can read the letter from Microsoft to the Yahoo board over at TC.
Filed under: Acquisitions, Advertising, Microsoft, Search, Tech News, Yahoo | Tagged: microsoft yahoo
