Yahoo Rebuffs Yet Another 'I Con'-Microsoft Overture
Who the heck is running Microsoft's M&A team? From The Station's vantage point, it sure looks like billionaire corporate pirate Carl Icahn, who doesn't even work for Microsoft. Yahoo's board of directors, forced by lawyers to meet on a day off (Saturday) and make a decision on Microsoft's (read that Icahn's) latest offer to dismantle the pioneering Internet company, naturally voted to reject the "offer" to sell its search business and leave the remainder of the company in Icahn's control. If its search engine were sold, the carcass of Yahoo -- search is the heart of the company, after all -- would belong to Icahn (who could care less about the business itself and is concerned only about what profit he can wring out of the sale) because he would insist that co-founder and CEO Jerry Yang be sent on his way, along with the rest of the current B of Ds. In his dastardly plan, Icahn would install his own puppet board of directors and anoint himself as Vicar of Yahoo, so he can break the company up, sell the pieces and reap more untold billions for his own overstuffed bank account. Who gives a damn about Yahoo users? How much money is enough, Icahn? (Should we be spelling your name "I con"?) We've written it before, and we'll write it again, right here for all to see: Carl Icahn is a completely selfish putz and should be avoided at all costs. He's a rich putz, no denying that. But riches are hardly indicators of happiness; we know lots of unhappy rich people. This bully needs to retire, and the sooner the better. He knows nothing -- repeat, nothing -- about the IT business and about Yahoo in particular. We do not care that he owns $1 billion in Yahoo stock. Lots of grandmas own stock in companies and know nothing or next to nothing about them. Icahn is a squealing granny of an investor who needs to be slapped, and often. Terms of the latest "offer" were not divulged July 12. We can only image how putrid they were. "It is ludicrous to think that our board would accept such a proposal," Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock said in a statement to the press on Saturday, July 12. "While this type of erratic and unpredictable behavior is consistent with what we've come to expect with Microsoft, we will not be bludgeoned into a transaction that is not in the best interest of our stockholders." What else did you expect them to say, you Icahn-following nincompoops in Redmond? Steve Ballmer, why are you allowing this snake to push you around? You are a Tier 1 accomplice in this woebegotten, half-baked exercise in ineptitude. Perhaps this whole thing wasn't even your idea after all. Yahoo and Microsoft will never mix; get used to the idea. Don't keep traipsing back with thinly veiled "different" takeover packages given on a 24-hour, take-it-or-leave it basis. Let it go. Now. The conflict is as basic as open source versus proprietary, right brain versus left brain, open-minded versus close-minded, creative versus anal. Sheesh. |
Comments (5)
Get a clue Chris. This buy out is about maximizing stock holder value now. Not about you MS haters trying to protect an inept Yahoo Board of directors and Yang-hoo!!! Read the WSJ once in a while and find what the real world is doing.
Posted by Indy51 | July 14, 2008 8:47 AM
Thanks for this, but we do not need the almighty Wall Street Journal to tell us "what the real world is doing." That paper certainly is part of the overall information flow, but it is always going to offer a finance/market-favored look at any business. Most of the time, I want to know a lot more about a company than its stock price, what its numbers were last quarter, who's pulling the money strings, and what its prospects are. Half the time projections are incorrect anyway.
When I research a company, I want to know who is doing the inventing, how they are improving on the old standard, what new ideas they are putting into play, and how they intend to crystallize their plan. The WSJ does this on occasion, but not every day as some other publications do.
The WSJ, for all its good work, is not the world's go-to publication for IT business because its coverage is far too broad for it to specialize. I wouldn't consult the WSJ to find out the best storage virtualization software to buy. Nor would I read it to find out the differences between the world's best browsers or search engines. For those, I'd go to a trusted IT publication, like eWEEK, InfoWorld, InformationWeek, or CRN.
Where do you get the idea that the Yahoo board is inept? You've also been listening to self-minded Mr. Icahn again. A company that started from scratch in the early '90s and built itself into a $31 billion (market cap) mainstay of the Internet in only 15 years cannot be run by an inept board of directors and CEO.
Maximizing stockholder value. Feh! The way to maximize stockholder value is to keep innovating and building the company with what got you here -- not to listen to some fly-by-night corporate raider who's only interested in himself, and hardly Yahoo's customers, client base -- and yes, its stockholders.
/cp
Posted by The Station | July 14, 2008 1:35 PM
>>The way to maximize stockholder value is to keep
>>innovating and building the company with what got
>>you here
Unmitigated BS. And ignorant, to boot. The world is littered with companies who died because they just kept doing what "got them there".
Yahoo is on the decline and has been for years. Yahoo was once an internet powerhouse, now really really isn't. A board of directors that oversees the kind of decline Yahoo has experienced, and are incapable of doing anything effective about it, ARE INEPT.
In the mean time, Yang screwed his shareholders out of a LOT of money by turning down a vastly overvalued buy out offer. This has nothing to do with which techno-religious vibe (pro or anti-MS) you suscribe to, it's a simple matter of fact.
Your 'Feh' comment about maximizing shareholder value underlies just how much you DON'T get it. Go back and reread your post from the vantage point of someone who's just gotten screwed out of millions. Puts a different spin on it doesn't it?
Posted by Steve G. | July 14, 2008 7:32 PM
Well Chris, it's 2 to 1 so far that you really are ignorant of the real world. I'd say your "Feh" comment in the subsequent post only confirms it.
Better listen to Steve G, he nailed it right on Yang and the "Inept Board"
Posted by Indy51 | July 15, 2008 11:50 AM
Okay, all you Yahoos out there who could care less if the company continues to exist and serve its millions of customers:
Are companies simply created to be broken up and sold? Is that the main point of business? That's what you're all telling me. Answer me that.
All enterprises have their ups and downs. In the '80s, IBM was horribly run. HP struggled mightily after the Compaq acquisition six years ago, and it's still hurting in some sectors (namely storage). Even Google has lost 20 percent of its stock value in the last year. Microsoft has pulled a large number of boners in its time, including being about 5 years late to the Internet.
Yahoo is down but hardly out. So tear it apart, right? All of us users of its email, calendar, search, news, etc. should just move on. Let's just build a $31 billion company and let the buzzards eat it up.
Last time I looked, Yahoo serves as home page for more users than any other site. That's not the sign of a dying company.
Why is Microsoft so interested in acquiring this company? For its value.
/cp
Posted by The Station | July 15, 2008 12:35 PM