Microsoft offers to buy Yahoo for $44.6 billion!NEW YORK (Reuters) CNBC - Technology giant Microsoft Corp <MSFT.O> said on Friday that it had offered to acquire Internet media company Yahoo Inc <YHOO.O> for $44.6 billion in cash and stock.

Microsoft said it had offered to buy Yahoo for $31 per share, which it said represented a 62 percent premium above the company’s closing stock price on Nasdaq on Thursday.

“We have great respect for Yahoo, and together we can offer an increasingly exciting set of solutions for consumers, publishers and advertisers while becoming better positioned to compete in the online services market,” Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said in a statement.

Yahoo was not immediately available for comment.

Microsoft said it had identified four areas that would generate at least $1 billion in annual synergies for the combined entity.

Yahoo shares rose 56 percent to $29.95 in premarket trading on Friday following the announcement. U.S. stock index futures also jumped after the news was released.

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It looks like Microsoft is really on a roll here ever since the buying a piece of the social networking giant, Facebook, as it looks to keep up with eventual I.T. successor Google. But where’s the synergy? Yahoo has had much more success on the web than Microsoft, and Google increasingly looks to challenge Microsoft with online office apps. There’s search, too: the two companies combined would command 27% of the search market against Google’s 65%. And of course there’s advertising, where Google is also dominant and Yahoo is building out Panama.

Former CEO, Bill Gates, was not available at the time for questioning thus we will leave you with a classic photo of a provocative Gates doing the dirty deed with teh release of Windows 1.0.

Bill Gates




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