Yahoo Release Excellent Results But Still Open To Offers
It seems so long ago that Microsoft fired the first shot in what is expected to be a major war of words with search engine competitor Yahoo!, a company who has been struggling of late. The multi-billion dollar offer from Microsoft had been expected a couple of years ago when Google were flying high and taking the world by storm, but it never arrived. So what chance of a Yahoo! / Microsoft merger?
As Google continue to push forward, expanding into new and exciting areas of business, the likes of Yahoo! and MSN (Microsoft?s search engine operation) are being left further and further behind. Despite the better than expected results from Yahoo! which showed first quarter profits rising for the first time in two years, and increased full year forecast rising to over $7 billion, many are not convinced that it is happening fast enough.
An MSN / Yahoo! combination has been the choice of many for years but it seems that while the parties had been in discussions before, they could not agree a format for the combined group. Microsoft has now threatened to go hostile in their bid unless they can agree terms with Yahoo! and work together to fight Google.
A quick glance at Google will show how much they have done over the last decade and while we tend to catch the good news in the headlines, Google have made many mistakes in the past, but dropped them and moved on rather than throwing good money after bad. This is a mindset which both MSN and Yahoo! need to take on board if they are to close the gap, as both companies have constantly been criticised for a lack of ambition and being too conservative in their approach to expansion.
It will be interesting to see if Yahoo! flush out another bidder, or as many believe, flush out a higher price from Microsoft.
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