With rejection after rejection, this has been a bad week for Yahoo. After Google pulled out of their advertising partnership due to legal worries, Yahoo's co-founder and CEO Jerry Yang made a come-and-get-us plea to Microsoft, despite having rejected bids earlier in the year. Mr Yang, speaking at the San Francisco Web 2.0 summit, said: "To this day the best thing for Microsoft to do is buy Yahoo." Unfortunately for Yahoo, Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer seems to disagree. Yahoo's current share price is currently half the value of Microsoft's initial bid, but after two rejections they've had enough. At a Committee for Economic Development of Australia meeting in Sydney today, Ballmer is reported to have said: "Look, we made an offer, we made another offer. It was clear that Yahoo didn't want to sell the business to us, and we moved on."
Microsoft's offer was believed to be around $47.5 billion, offering Yahoo!'s stockholders a generous $33 per share. When NASDAQ closed last night they were worth less than $14. The Yahoo-Google advertising deal was supposed to be a way to boost finances and appease shareholders; but with that option gone, the future is looking uncertain for Yahoo. Mr Yang's comments saw Yahoo's stock on the share market go up by seven per cent before dropping back down to $13.96.
This isn't the only deal Microsoft has tried - and failed - to make work with Yahoo. Ballmer said: "We tried at one point to do a partnership around search, not advertising. That didn't work either, so we moved on, and they moved on."
However, it wasn't all doom and gloom from the Microsoft camp. Ballmer added: "I'm sure there are still some opportunities for some kind of partnership around search but I think acquisition is a thing of the past.
"Everybody needs a good competitor and we just want the other guys in this business to have a good competitor that they have to think about every day."
