Microsoft Says It Has No Plans to Pursue Yahoo
Posted on: Friday, 9 May 2008, 09:00 CDT
By Ed Davies and Harry Suhartono
Microsoft has no plans to make another approach for Yahoo after it pulled its $47.5 billion bid earlier this month, Microsoft's chief research and strategy officer, Craig Mundie, said Thursday.
"The market may wish that the Yahoo deal may come back together, but Microsoft at least at this point assumes it's over," Mundie said. "We know what we thought its economic limits were, and that didn't come together, so we've moved on and we will go back and implement Plan B that we've been on in any case," he added, referring to the company's online services strategy.
Microsoft walked away Saturday from its bid to buy Yahoo after the Internet company turned down its offer to raise the price by $5 billion, to $47.5 billion.
Microsoft's offer was for $33 a share, but Yahoo would not go lower than $37, Microsoft's chief executive, Steven Ballmer, said. Microsoft initially bid $31 per share for Yahoo more than three months ago.
"Yahoo could always come back again and say 'Please buy us for $33,' and I'm sure we might reconsider it but we're not assuming that's going to happen," Mundie said.
Microsoft's online business has racked up nine straight quarterly losses, but Mundie said the company was prepared to be patient.
"We view these online services as strategic long-term businesses. We will continue to invest heavily in order to do that and our aggregate business performance allows that to happen," he said.
Mundie also said that Microsoft's plan to continuously refine its battle against piracy was intact, even if there were setbacks in its strategy.
Microsoft said after releasing its quarterly results in late April that emerging markets saw an increase in the number of personal computers sold without licensed software - often a sign that pirated software will later be installed on the machines.
"I don't think anything's fundamentally changed. Each of these countries has their ups and downs as a function of changes in government - you know, individual regulators, law-enforcement priorities, et cetera," said Mundie, who was in Jakarta for a conference on government leaders in Asia.
Mundie cited China as an example of a country where the piracy rate was very high but where the situation had improved after the top levels of government brought in regulatory changes.
"I'm personally optimistic about that. I don't see a reason for alarm," he added.
On strategy, Mundie said that there were unlikely to be big operational changes when Gates departs at the end of June.
Source: International Herald Tribune
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User Comments (1)
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Posted by PacificGatePost on 05/09/2008, 11:40 YAHOO’S SHAREHOLDERS LOSE ON MORE THAN ONE FRONT Great to see that cool heads have finally prevailed at Microsoft. Nevertheless, it was a seriously missed opportunity by Yahoo shareholders. http://pacificgatepost.blogspot.com/2008/05/yahoos-board-and-its-shareholders.html They should have been more vocal. Now it's too late. Their board did not serve them well. |
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