microsoft-yahoo acquisition

Yahoo rebuts Icahn: You have no plan

Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock fired back at Carl Icahn Wednesday evening, accusing the investor of having no comprehension of the facts and no plan for the company besides selling it to Microsoft.

"Your letter seriously misrepresents and manipulates the facts regarding the recent events pertaining to Microsoft and Yahoo," Bostock said in a letter to Icahn. "Conspicuously absent from your letter is any credible plan for Yahoo other than a repetition of your insistence that the company should sell itself to Microsoft."

Bostock's letter came in response to one earlier in the day from Icahn, who accused Yahoo CEO of trying to sabotage Microsoft's acquisition attempt … Read more

Video: Understanding Microsoft's strategic direction

Continuing the exegesis of Steve Ballmer's remarks on how Yahoo should be viewed as part of "a" strategy to accelerate Microsoft's online advertising, but not "the" strategy, CNET News.com Executive Editor Jim Kerstetter and I attempt to make sense of the latest twists and turns in the Microhoo saga. Watch the video:

Google execs stew over Microsoft response

Google's top brass are meeting Monday to figure out a response to how Microsoft's new overtures toward Yahoo affect Google's potential ad deal with Yahoo.

Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt, speaking to reporters at a Google Zeitgeist event in the U.K., said he's meeting with co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin on the matter, according to the Times Online. "After this press conference the three of us will meet and decide what our response is," Schmidt said.

Google and Yahoo have been discussing a partnership under which Google would supply some text ads … Read more

Playing out Microsoft's online strategy

The latest wild rumor circulating is that after doing a search ad deal with Yahoo, Microsoft will spend its cash acquiring Facebook for $15 billion to $20 billion.

At a press conference in Tokyo on Monday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was asked about Facebook's future as a standalone company. "You can tell, from our history and what we've done, that we really wanted to keep the company independent, by focusing on building and focusing on the long term," Reuters reported.

Zuckerberg declined to comment on a follow-up question regarding the prospect of a sale. Microsoft invested $… Read more

Yahoo tries to conceal lawsuit documents

Yahoo and shareholders suing the company don't see eye to eye about how public some documents involved in the case should be.

The documents involve details of a severance plan Yahoo adopted after Microsoft launched its attempt to acquire the Internet company in February. Yahoo wants to keep the documents redacted, but Joel Friedlander, the attorney representing the shareholders, accused Yahoo of trying "to whitewash embarrassing documents" so they couldn't be used to undermine its effort to fend off activist investor Carl Icahn's attempt to oust Yahoo's board, according to The Associated Press.

Also … Read more

EIC Squared: SAP, Sun, AMD and Microhoo

In this week's EIC Squared podcast, ZDNet's Larry Dignan and I discuss the latest news from SAP, Sun Microsystems, Advanced Micro Devices, and Microhoo. At SAP's Sapphire conference this week, company executives explained the delayed rollout of the new on-demand enterprise suite, Business ByDesign. SAP CEO Henning Kagermann said that the total cost of ownership (TCO) equation on Business ByDesign and the upgrade procedures weren't good enough:

"We know we can have TCO, but need NetWeaver enhancements. There's a very close link between the TCO of Business ByDesign and NetWeaver. The TCO is not … Read more

Has Microsoft really closed the door on Microhoo?

Based on comments by Chairman Bill Gates and CTO Craig Mundie in the last few days, you might think Microsoft has not lost its lust for Yahoo. With no alternatives in sight, Yahoo may be rethinking its terms and conditions for becoming part of Microsoft. In this video, I outline the latest moves and nuances of the Microhoo affair.

Microsoft: Saving face by buying Facebook?

Microsoft, we get it: That Yahoo thing fell through, and picking up the pieces can be messy. But according to Kara Swisher at All Things D, Redmond just won't give up. The company has reportedly put together a Plan B that it refers to as "Project Granola," a name that makes "Zune" sound good.

And part of "Project Granola," Swisher wrote, is exploring the possibility of turning that $240 million stake in Facebook into an outright ownership.

More specifically, Microsoft's bankers have been shooting "subtle signals" in Facebook's direction, … Read more

Yahoo to rake in $1 billion from Google ads? Doubtful

Citigroup analyst Mark Mahaney has been widely cited for his February analysis showing some strong financial benefits of a deal under which Yahoo would use Google to supply search ads. With that scenario now appearing more likely, he's issued a new report on the subject that projects as much as $1 billion in incremental cash flow for Yahoo in 2008.

But that dramatic figure is based on a complete outsourcing of search ads to Google. So don't expect anything like that number to come of the potential pact, which could be announced this week. A source familiar with … Read more