Now that Yahoo's irrelevance in the internet industry is more or less certain, Jerry Yang has come back asking Microsoft to buy his company out. Yahoo!'s shares are at $13 range currently. Microsoft's original bid was $33/share and Jerry didn't want to take it. After Google has walked away from the advertising deal, Yahoo!'s board is now currently left with no option but to seek Microsoft's help by buying them out.
What should Microsoft do? Microsoft itself is on the verge of irrelevance in Internet industry. Except for the infamous browser called Internet Explorer, anything that Microsoft has done (copied from someone) hasn't been even a moderate success. Acquisitions like Hotmail and borrowed ideas on cloud computing and other developments have kept Microsoft afloat in the web world. If Microsoft were to acquire Yahoo! eying Search consolidation, it might not be such a bad decision after all. However, considering that Google is well over 65% of the market today, an acquisition on its own will not help Microsoft in any way. First the merged company will need to trim itself and leverage the power of each of the products it owns. And knowing Microsoft, the big bully might find it tough to change its bad habits of acquiring something, making changes to that successful system so that it becomes unusable and buggy.
What should Yahoo! do? The best course of action is to add Icahn to its board so that a decent negotiation can take place with Microsoft. Next, remove ineffective board members without any severance pay. Third, really focus on getting the maximum value for Yahoo! shareholders instead of just focusing on packages for top management and board.
Too sad to see you go Yahoo!. The end could have been better.
What should Microsoft do? Microsoft itself is on the verge of irrelevance in Internet industry. Except for the infamous browser called Internet Explorer, anything that Microsoft has done (copied from someone) hasn't been even a moderate success. Acquisitions like Hotmail and borrowed ideas on cloud computing and other developments have kept Microsoft afloat in the web world. If Microsoft were to acquire Yahoo! eying Search consolidation, it might not be such a bad decision after all. However, considering that Google is well over 65% of the market today, an acquisition on its own will not help Microsoft in any way. First the merged company will need to trim itself and leverage the power of each of the products it owns. And knowing Microsoft, the big bully might find it tough to change its bad habits of acquiring something, making changes to that successful system so that it becomes unusable and buggy.
What should Yahoo! do? The best course of action is to add Icahn to its board so that a decent negotiation can take place with Microsoft. Next, remove ineffective board members without any severance pay. Third, really focus on getting the maximum value for Yahoo! shareholders instead of just focusing on packages for top management and board.
Too sad to see you go Yahoo!. The end could have been better.
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