Microsoft rejects Yahoo! rejection

Nah, Ballmer wants to _throw_ him.

Ballmer might be surprised. I just ran acros this on Groklaw: http://seekingalpha.com/article/63912-microsoft-s-80-billion...

MS is being severely punushed by the stcok markets for their Yahoo bid. Stock dropped $40 billion. Yup, for every $1 that MS offers Yahoo, stockholders punish MS by $1. So that $40 billion buyout was going to cost them $80 billion. Moreover, since half the bid was in stock, the bid is now worth much less than $40 billion. MS is going to have to pony up a *lot* more cash if they really want Yahoo. And the more they offer, the more suspicious it starts to look to the regulators. $40 billion was already waaay over value from a ROI point of view. Imagine what the regulators may think when it ends up costing MS well over $100 billion.

@Sander: Freakin' great: it links to a "Mircosoft Yahoo! Bid Calculator" served in Google Docs!

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=piuJWH9sVc_K3e3Y0Shk5...

Something of a high-pressure game of wits going on for both sides.

The more Yang and the board try to hold out, the more pressure by Yahoo shareholders on Yang and the board to just accept MS's buyout offer once and for all. No doubt MS would just love to use more and more shareholder tactics to squeeze out Yang and board's resistance to the takeover.

The pressure is also on Micrososft too, and not just the dip in its stocks, although certainly less so than on Yahoo. The longer MS waits or prolongs its acquisition of Yahoo, the greater the likelihood of governmental scrutiny of the buyout and MS's various costs associated with this.

I'm not sure if Microsoft's game is like when GM, Firestone and an oil company (Exxon or Standard) bought up all the bus companies and torched the busses or if M$ really wants M$-Yahoo! to work.

moopst --

What the heck are you talking about? Buses abound.

What GM did was buy up light rail and trolley to make a market for buses.

You're right, I thought it was buses for cars.