With Yahoo, Microsoft faces antitrust fight once again
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Microsoft once faced an epic antitrust battle in Washington, and political scrutiny of a Yahoo purchase is certain. But a lot has changed in a decade.
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Google Inc. faces an uphill battle in its effort to stir competition concerns over Microsoft Corp.'s $42 billion bid for Yahoo Inc., analysts said Monday.
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Jerry Yang faces enormous pressure as he decides whether to try to rescue the company from Microsoft, or accept the bid and watch Yahoo become part of Microsoftâs arsenal in its no-holds-barred brawl with Google.
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Yahoo! must consider the Microsoft deal on the table.
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Microsoft plans to intensify its pursuit of Yahoo this week when it authorizes a proxy fight to oust Yahoo&#39;s board, meaning the 19-day old acquisition attempt will soon turn a darker shade of ugly, according to The New York Times.The proxy fight will cost Microsoft between $20 million and $30 million, much less than having to significantly up its offer for Yahoo, The Times reported Tuesday morning, quoting anonymous sources.The aggressive move would be consistent with Microsoft&#39;s statements hinting that it&#39;s willing to acquire Yahoo via hostile means if necessary.&#160;Yahoo&#39;s board rejected unanimously Microsoft&#39;s offer, calling it too low.Yahoo declined to comment about The Times&#39; article. Microsoft didn&#39;t immediately reply to requests for comment.On Feb. 1, Microsoft offered to pay $31 per share for half of Yahoo&#39;s outstanding shares in cash -- about $22.3 billion -- and 0.9509 of a Microsoft share for the other half. Microsoft&#39;s half-cash/half-stock offer to Yahoo was valued at about $44.6 billion at the time it was made; Yahoo&#39;s share price was $19.18 at the time.However, the bid&#39;s value has dropped to about $41 billion as the price of Microsoft&#39;s stock has fallen from $32.60 at the time the offer was made. It was trading at $28.77 on Tuesday morning. At the same time, Yahoo&#39;s stock has surged, erasing the bid&#39;s original premium. It was trading at $29.32 on Tuesday morning.In the proxy fight, Microsoft would hire a proxy solicitor to urge Yahoo investors to kick out board directors, The Times reported, adding that all Yahoo directors are up for nomination this year.After investing heavily in recent years in its Internet business and failing to achieve its desired goals, Microsoft is now convinced that it must acquire Yahoo in order to compete against common rival Google, especially in search advertising, the largest online advertising market pie, and one that Google dominates.As of the end of 2007&#39;s third quarter, Google had almost 25 percent of the U.S. Internet advertising market, up from almost 21 percent in 2006&#39;s third quarter, according to IDC. Meanwhile, Yahoo&#39;s share during this period dropped to 11.3 percent from 12.3 percent, while Microsoft&#39;s declined to 5.2 percent from 5.8 percent, according to IDC.In search usage, Google held a commanding 62.4 percent of queries worldwide, followed by Yahoo in a very distant second place with 12.8 percent, according to comScore. Microsoft ranked fourth with 2.9 percent, after Baidu (5.2 percent).Unquestionably, Yahoo would be a major win for Microsoft in the display ad market. In November, Yahoo ranked first in the U.S. in display ad impressions with a 19 percent share, while Microsoft came in third with 6.7 percent, after News Corp.&#39;s Fox Interactive (16.3 percent), according to comScore. Google took seventh place with 1 percent.However, skeptics question whether acquiring Yahoo will yield the expected benefits, considering the complexity of integrating the two businesses, cultures and technology platforms and the fact that Yahoo has had severe internal problems that have stumped its most seasoned executives. In addition, some aren&#39;t sure that a unified Microsoft/Yahoo will have a better chance to compete against Google.Yahoo co-founder and CEO Jerry Yang, who is also on the board of directors, has been urgently looking for and considering alternatives to a Microsoft acquisition soon after Ballmer and company made their bid.Reports -- all attributed to anonymous sources in various media outlets -- have emerged in the past two weeks that Yang has held conversations with Google, AOL and News Corp., exploring various deals that would allow him to reject Microsoft&#39;s offer.The key is that the shareholder value created by a competing deal would have to at least match the value of Microsoft&#39;s deal. Otherwise, Yahoo would make itself liable to shareholder lawsuits that alleged the board had failed to perform its fiduciary duty.So far, as experts have analyzed the potential value to Yahoo of outsourcing its search advertising to Google, merging with AOL or selling a 20 percent stake to News Corp. in exchange for MySpace, the consensus has been that none of those scenarios comes close to matching Microsoft&#39;s offer.
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Microsoft may end up having to raise the amount it is willing to pay for Yahoo if the software company&#39;s stock continues to drop while Yahoo&#39;s continues to rise.
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The Wall Street Journal reports that no serious bids have emerged to rival Microsoft's $44.6 billion offer for Yahoo. That doesn't mean the company isn't still trying to piece something together.
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Microsoft may end up having to raise the amount it is willing to pay for Yahoo if the software company's stock continues to drop while Yahoo's continues to rise.
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Yahoo's fiercest competitor, Google, has raised concerns about the possibility of Microsoft's takeover. Google's motives, of course, are hardly pure.
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Yahoo Inc's   second-biggest shareholder urged Microsoft Corp  to  raise its $42 billion bid for the Web pioneer and warned Yahoo  it has few options other than to accept, raising pressure for  them to seal a deal.
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SAN FRANCISCO/NEW YORK  - Microsoft Corp   made a bid to buy Yahoo Inc  for $44.6 billion, seeking  to join forces against Google Inc  in what would be the  biggest Internet deal since the Time Warner- AOL merger.
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SAN FRANCISCO/NEW YORK  - Yahoo Inc  would  consider a business alliance with Google Inc  as one  way to rebuff a $44.6 billion takeover proposal by Microsoft, a  source familiar with Yahoo's strategy said on Sunday.
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Next week&#39;s European  antitrust ruling against Microsoft Corp  is a legacy of  its past behavior, but competitors say the company&#39;s current  strategy is a sign of history repeating itself.
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By Benjamin J. Romano, The Seattle Times  Jun. 18--Just as a major episode in Microsoft's antitrust saga was  winding down, a complaint from its biggest rival threatens to push the  company's competitive practices back into the spotlight.
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Microsoft's CEO tells financial analysts that the company has a plan to take on its major rival. Yahoo could speed up the plan, but it will build its ad business, regardless.
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SEATTLE/SAN FRANCISCO  - Next week's European antitrust ruling against Microsoft Corp  is a legacy of its past behavior, but competitors say the company's current strategy is a sign of history repeating itself.
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Business software units of Yahoo  Inc  and Google Inc  are introducing beefed-up  versions of their Web-based software that compete with  Microsoft Outlook, offering yet another clue why Microsoft Corp   made a $45 billion unsolicited bid for Yahoo.