Clash of the Titans: Potential Yahoo! deal brings industry behemoths head-to-head

TOPH TUCKER ‘08

Microsoft. Google. Time Warner. News Corp. Four of the biggest names in business; combined market cap of half a trillion dollars. And they’re all getting involved in the battle over troubled Internet giant Yahoo.

It started on February 1, when Microsoft announced an unsolicited $44.6 billion takeover bid for Yahoo. Since then, Yahoo has looked for every possible way out of the deal, but analysts agreed it was a waiting game. No white knight emerged, and Microsoft is now threatening to turn the bid hostile if Yahoo doesn’t accept quickly. They have refused to raise their bid, instead countering that, if anything, it would only go down.

By Wednesday, though, things seemed to be heating up. Yahoo entered into a limited trial run of a Google ad partnership, and late that night, the news broke that other deals may be looming. Specifically, Time Warner was mulling a deal that would combine AOL and Yahoo, while News Corp. was considering a joint bid with Microsoft. The latter coalition would potentially combine Yahoo, MSN, and MySpace into a single entity.

Whichever way the deal goes, it stands to dramatically shake up the Internet landscape. The fate of search, email, portal and instant messaging monopolies hangs in the balance. Yet any merger would be messy. Aside from the simple stuff—where employees go, which services are discontinued—each of these companies controls a huge amount of backend infrastructure that would have to be consolidated.

Everyone knew this was going to be fun; so far, it hasn’t disappointed. What remains to be seen is the quantitative effect on the marketplace.

Further reading:
MSNBC: Yahoo takeover battle takes dramatic twist
WSJ Article
Reuters Article
Marketwatch Article
Wikipedia Entry
Site Statistics
More coverage
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BREAKING NEWS: DUMBLEDORE IS STRAIGHT

Early this morning, during a press release, special correspondent Rita Skeeter revealed that deceased Hogwarts Headmaster, Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, considered one of the greatest wizards of modern times, is in fact of the heterosexual orientation. Professor Dumbledore is known for his defeat of dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald in 1945, a man who was perceived to be his first love. He also was famous for his discovery of the twelve uses of dragon’s blood and his work on alchemy with Nicholas Flamel.

At a young age, Dumbledore befriended Godric’s Hollow neighbor Grindelwald. They were united by their mutual dreams of finding the Deathly Hallows and conquering the wizarding world for the “greater good,” together. Following Dumbledore’s tragic death at the hands of Severus Snape, he was widely believed to be of the homosexual orientation. A year ago, Sybill Trelawny, great-great-granddaughter of the celebrated seer Cassandra Trelawney and professor of Divination, revealed that she had a “vision” of Dumbledore’s true nature. Not long after that, Gilderoy Lockhart, author of Magical Me, published a tell-all novel of his time at Hogwarts, which mentioned his (now proven false) accusations that Dumbledore made sexual advances towards him.

“Its bloody ridiculous that this git could make such a stupid comment about Dumbledore,” complained Auror Ron Weasley, previous student of Dumbledore. “That nutter has never spoken a true word in his entire pathetic life.”

After Harry Potter’s defeat of dark wizard Voldemort this June, Minerva McGonagall, longtime colleague of Dumbledore, was forced to take veritaserum, the “truth” potion, in order for the ministry to determine the truth of what happened that night, and what led up to it. In the interview, when asked of her relationship with Dumbledore, she revealed the truth of his sexuality. Apparently, throughout their long time friendship, their relationship grew to be something more than “just colleagues.” Their escapades included late night rendezvous in the Room of Requirement and secret trips to the astronomy tower to gaze at the stars.

Needless to say, this revelation brings up questions of what the other Hogwarts teachers might be doing at night. It makes us ponder the existence of illegitimate children who might be the result of this clandestine affair and heir to Dumbledore’s fortune of unique treasures and considerable wealth.

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