Reports: Microsoft to Acquire Tellme
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Microsoft is close to a deal with Tellme Networks, a company that specializes in voice recognition technology. An acquisition would likely bring voice recognition to several of Microsoft's Web-based products.
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Microsoft Corp has offered to buy Norwegian Internet-search software firm Fast Search & Transfer for 19 crowns per share, valuing the company at about $1.2 billion, the companies said on Tuesday.
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Microsoft continues to make acquisitions to boost its online services and advertising strategy. Early Wednesday, the company said it snapped up Multimap, a U.K. company that provides online mapping for Europe, North America, and Australia.
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Microsoft said Monday that it would acquire Medstory, a company that develops Web search technology for health information. The Redmond company said that it intends to use the move to begin a push into the realm of consumer health.
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InfoWorld - Microsoft has offered to buy Yahoo for around $44.6 billion in cash and shares, to better compete with Google in the market for online services.
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Microsoft Corp  said on  Wednesday it has acquired Multimap, one of Britain's top online  mapping companies.
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Microsoft Corp is talking to Facebook  about buying a minority stake in the fast-growing online social  network that could value the company at $10 billion or more,  the Wall Street Journal reported on its Web site on Monday.
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In a letter to Yahoo&#39;s board, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer&#160;offered to acquire the company&#160;for a per-share price of $31 in cash or 0.9509 of a share of Microsoft common stock -- a 62 percent premium above the Jan. 31, closing price of Yahoo -- and cited the broad range of ways in which the companies might work together to create a more effective competitor in the online marketplace. Below is the text of the letter that Microsoft sent to Yahoo&#39;s Board of Directors:January 31, 2008Board of DirectorsYahoo! Inc.701 First AvenueSunnyvale, CA 94089Attention: Roy Bostock, ChairmanAttention: Jerry Yang, Chief Executive OfficerDear Members of the Board:I am writing on behalf of the Board of Directors of Microsoft to make a proposal for a business combination of Microsoft and Yahoo!. Under our proposal, Microsoft would acquire all of the outstanding shares of Yahoo! common stock for per share consideration of $31 based on Microsoft&#39;s closing share price on January 31, 2008, payable in the form of $31 in cash or 0.9509 of a share of Microsoft common stock. Microsoft would provide each Yahoo! shareholder with the ability to choose whether to receive the consideration in cash or Microsoft common stock, subject to pro-ration so that in the aggregate one-half of the Yahoo! common shares will be exchanged for shares of Microsoft common stock and one-half of the Yahoo! common shares will be converted into the right to receive cash. Our proposal is not subject to any financing condition.Our proposal represents a 62% premium above the closing price of Yahoo! common stock of $19.18 on January 31, 2008. The implied premium for the operating assets of the company clearly is considerably greater when adjusted for the minority, non-controlled assets and cash. By whatever financial measure you use - EBITDA, free cash flow, operating cash flow, net income, or analyst target prices - this proposal represents a compelling value realization event for your shareholders.We believe that Microsoft common stock represents a very attractive investment opportunity for Yahoo!&#39;s shareholders. Microsoft has generated revenue growth of 15%, earnings growth of 26%, and a return on equity of 35% on average for the last three years. Microsoft&#39;s share price has generated shareholder returns of 8% during the last one year period and 28% during the last three year period, significantly outperforming the S&amp;P 500. It is our view that Microsoft has significant potential upside given the continued solid growth in our core businesses, the recent launch of Windows Vista, and other strategic initiatives.Microsoft&#39;s consistent belief has been that the combination of Microsoft and Yahoo! clearly represents the best way to deliver maximum value to our respective shareholders, as well as create a more efficient and competitive company that would provide greater value and service to our customers. In late 2006 and early 2007, we jointly explored a broad range of ways in which our two companies might work together. These discussions were based on a vision that the online businesses of Microsoft and Yahoo! should be aligned in some way to create a more effective competitor in the online marketplace. We discussed a number of alternatives ranging from commercial partnerships to a merger proposal, which you rejected. While a commercial partnership may have made sense at one time, Microsoft believes that the only alternative now is the combination of Microsoft and Yahoo! that we are proposing.In February 2007, I received a letter from your Chairman indicating the view of the Yahoo! Board that &quot;now is not the right time from the perspective of our shareholders to enter into discussions regarding an acquisition transaction.&quot; According to that letter, the principal reason for this view was the Yahoo! Board&#39;s confidence in the &quot;potential upside&quot; if management successfully executed on a reformulated strategy based on certain operational initiatives, such as Project Panama, and a significant organizational realignment. A year has gone by, and the competitive situation has not improved.While online advertising growth continues, there are significant benefits of scale in advertising platform economics, in capital costs for search index build-out, and in research and development, making this a time of industry consolidation and convergence. Today, the market is increasingly dominated by one player who is consolidating its dominance through acquisition. Together, Microsoft and Yahoo! can offer a credible alternative for consumers, advertisers, and publishers. Synergies of this combination fall into four areas:Scale economics: This combination enables synergies related to scale economics of the advertising platform where today there is only one competitor at scale. This includes synergies across both search and non-search related advertising that will strengthen the value proposition to both advertisers and publishers. Additionally, the combination allows us to consolidate capital spending.Expanded R&amp;D capacity: The combined talent of our engineering resources can be focused on R&amp;D priorities such as a single search index and single advertising platform. Together we can unleash new levels of innovation, delivering enhanced user experiences, breakthroughs in search, and new advertising platform capabilities. Many of these breakthroughs are a function of an engineering scale that today neither of our companies has on its own.Operational efficiencies: Eliminating redundant infrastructure and duplicative operating costs will improve the financial performance of the combined entity.Emerging user experiences: Our combined ability to focus engineering resources that drive innovation in emerging scenarios such as video, mobile services, online commerce, social media, and social platforms is greatly enhanced.We would value the opportunity to further discuss with you how to optimize the integration of our respective businesses to create a leading global technology company with exceptional display and search advertising capabilities. You should also be aware that we intend to offer significant retention packages to your engineers, key leaders and employees across all disciplines.We have dedicated considerable time and resources to an analysis of a potential transaction and are confident that the combination will receive all necessary regulatory approvals. We look forward to discussing this with you, and both our internal legal team and outside counsel are available to meet with your counsel at their earliest convenience.Our proposal is subject to the negotiation of a definitive merger agreement and our having the opportunity to conduct certain limited and confirmatory due diligence. In addition, because a portion of the aggregate merger consideration would consist of Microsoft common stock, we would provide Yahoo! the opportunity to conduct appropriate limited due diligence with respect to Microsoft. We are prepared to deliver a draft merger agreement to you and begin discussions immediately.In light of the significance of this proposal to your shareholders and ours, as well as the potential for selective disclosures, our intention is to publicly release the text of this letter tomorrow morning.Due to the importance of these discussions and the value represented by our proposal, we expect the Yahoo! Board to engage in a full review of our proposal. My leadership team and I would be happy to make ourselves available to meet with you and your Board at your earliest convenience. Depending on the nature of your response, Microsoft reserves the right to pursue all necessary steps to ensure that Yahoo!&#39;s shareholders are provided with the opportunity to realize the value inherent in our proposal.We believe this proposal represents a unique opportunity to create significant value for Yahoo!&#39;s shareholders and employees, and the combined company will be better positioned to provide an enhanced value proposition to users and advertisers. We hope that you and your Board share our enthusiasm, and we look forward to a prompt and favorable reply.Sincerely yours,/s/ Steven A. BallmerSteven A. BallmerChief Executive OfficerMicrosoft Corporation
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Microsoft has offered to buy enterprise search software company Fast Search And Transfer for 6.6 billion Norwegian kroner ($1.2 billion), it said Tuesday.
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U.S. software giant Microsoft Corp.   has bought Israeli start-up Gteko, a developer of  technical support products, Israeli newspapers reported on  Wednesday.
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Microsoft Corp. has offered to buy struggling internet search provider Yahoo for $44.6 billion, a merger that would combine two of the technology world's most well-known names into a potentially potent competitor for Google in the lucrative Web search and advertising market.
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The U.S. Federal Trade Commission is  investigating Microsoft Corp&#39;s  planned acquisition of  aQuantive Inc  as well as Yahoo Inc.&#39;s   proposed deal to take full control of Right Media Inc., The  Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.
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The U.S. Federal Trade Commission is investigating Microsoft Corp's  planned acquisition of aQuantive Inc  as well as Yahoo Inc.'s  proposed deal to take full control of Right Media Inc., The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.
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Late fall reports that The Washington Post Co. (NYSE: WPO) would buy online magazine Slate from Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) were confirmed yesterday.
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(InfoWorld) - Rumors that Microsoft may purchase BlackBerry maker Research in Motion are likely just that because of RIM's high price tag, though there would be benefits for both parties if a deal were struck, analysts said Friday. Michelle Warren, a senior analyst for Info-Tech Research Group in Toronto, sent out a note Thursday on industry speculation that Microsoft is in discussions with RIM, observing that the deal would give Microsoft ammunition to compete in the consumer device market against Apple. It also would position them well to fight any wireless strategy from Google, which has been buying up dark cable networks and is expected to make a big move in wireless communications in the next year or two, she said. "I think this makes sense basically because Microsoft has to do something different to order increase market share in the overall IT market," Warren said in an interview Friday. "It has to do something disruptive and eye-catching, and this speaks to its marketing positioning and future expansion plans." Microsoft has achieved a fair amount of success with its latest mobile OS, Windows Mobile 6, and has identified the mobile device space as an important one for the company's growth and revenue diversification going forward. Buying RIM would counter its current weakness in developing hardware for its mobile OS, Warren said. RIM would gain Microsoft's brand power and also engineering expertise for one of BlackBerry's competitive differentiators. Business users find a BlackBerry's ability to communicate with Microsoft Exchange Server for mobile e-mail an attractive feature. Microsoft also makes this option available in Windows Mobile. Synching up with Microsoft would allow the company to enhance this capability faster and more efficiently, Warren said. Neither Microsoft nor RIM would comment Friday on the possibility of a deal. Despite the advantages of a Microsoft-RIM merger, the deal just doesn't make economic sense, other analysts said Friday. To them, it's not even a remote possibility Microsoft would pony up more than the $47 billion in market cap RIM currently has to buy the vendor. "I just don't see it," said Matt Rosoff, an analyst with Directions on Microsoft. He acknowledged he was surprised byÂ Microsoft's purchase of digital advertising services firm aQuantiveÂ for $6 billion and so also could be mistaken in the case of RIM. However, it isn't likely that Microsoft, for which the aQuantive deal was its largest to date, would shell out much more than a few billion to purchase a company. "A RIM deal would be larger by an order of magnitude," Rosoff said. "I just don't see Microsoft making that size of acquisition." He added that some kind of strategic alliance between the two, which currently compete head to head in the mobile OS space, would be more likely. "A multiyear partnership agreement, where some money might change hands but we'd never know how much," would make more sense, Rosoff said. Roger Kay, president of market intelligence firm Endpoint Technologies Associates, agreed that Microsoft likely won't make a purchase that large. He also noted that although Microsoft has become increasingly "more comfortable" with developing consumer hardware -- with products like the Xbox 360 gaming console and Zune digital media player on the market -- there could be thorny competitive issues with mobile device makers that license Windows Mobile if Microsoft begin making hardware for this market.
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Microsoft said Friday it had offered to buy struggling Internet firm Yahoo for 44.6 billion dollars (30.0 billion euros) in a bid to take on Google in the crucial battle for online revenues.
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Microsoft Corp.  said on Monday it will buy Medstory Inc., a California-based start-up company that develops Web search technology for medical information.