Microsoft Corporation on Monday offered to buy Yahoo Inc. for a whopping price of $44.6 billion (22.4 billion pound), in a bold bid to transform the two ailing Internet businesses into a worthy competitor for market leader Google Inc. The proposed over haul by Microsoft has been on talks since early Jan. 2006.
In what would be the biggest Internet deal since the ill-fated Time Warner-AOL merger, Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer sent a letter to Yahoo's board on Thursday night to offer $31 per share in cash and in stock.
Yahoo would give Microsoft the dominance in Web banner ads used by corporate brand advertisers. It also attracts more than 600 million people monthly to sites that are devoted to news, finance and sports, and Yahoo Mail is the No. 1 consumer e-mail service till date and is expected to be for quite sometime.
Market Analysts say that the two companies have too many overlapping businesses - from instant messaging to email and advertising, as well as news, travel and finance sites - and both are weak in the Web search market, where Google dominates, and is unbeatable in a few years to come.
"They have to do it because they've tried everything they can do to fix MSN. Yahoo is the most visited site in the world, so it goes without saying that, given the current valuation, this is the perfect time for them to buy it," said a critic.
Let's hope that it bring good to the users in the near future as we are all dependant on these two giants.
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