Could News Corp Spoil Microsoft's Bid?

February 2, 2008 10:24 PM

News Corp. scrambles to outbid for Yahoo! -- Microsoft may have struck first with an unsolicited bid to buy Yahoo!, but News Corp, who has been courting for a stake of Yahoo! for a while now, may be switching gears to power past Microsoft, who is "strapped for cash".
posted by JD Rucker (19 comments total)

Someone please get a camera in front of Steve Ballmer.

Please?
posted by rokusan at 10:28 PM on February 2, 2008

Why isn't this FPP an extension of the Microsoft/Yahoo thread?
posted by ericb at 10:41 PM on February 2, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Gag. First Microsoft, now News Corp? Next we'll be hearing the company will be bought out by Halliburton.
posted by delmoi at 10:41 PM on February 2, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Next we'll be hearing the company will be bought out by Halliburton.

Blackwater's probably better at the hostile takeover gig.
posted by rokusan at 11:01 PM on February 2, 2008 [3 favorites has favorites]

China's sovereign wealth fund comes in and buys all 3.

Now THAT would be news.
posted by panamax at 11:12 PM on February 2, 2008

Gapes, calls for more popcorn, wonders if this whole thing is about to get even crazier.

Maybe Steve Jobs will buy out the New York Times, and it will be like a giant late-capitalist version of the faceoff in the graveyard?
posted by mwhybark at 11:13 PM on February 2, 2008

Heh, I thought you were talking about the "Good Ash...Bad Ash...I'm the guy with the gun" graveyard faceoff.
posted by XMLicious at 12:01 AM on February 3, 2008

I guess you could think that $20 billion in cash and short term investments qualifies as "strapped" if you assume it's all held in worthless American pesos.
posted by milkrate at 12:18 AM on February 3, 2008

I remember when Yahoo defined the cutting edge... but they've been stagnating for a long time.

At this point, they are being pursued not for their ability to innovate, but just for their market share and brand.

The whole situation is depressingly reminiscent of when AOL bought Netscape. Another once-proud, now-faltering iconic pioneer of the Internet is going to be taken over and run into the ground by people who don't understand it and don't care about its legacy.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 2:24 AM on February 3, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Another once-proud, now-faltering iconic pioneer of the Internet is going to be taken over and run into the ground by people who don't understand it and don't care about its legacy.

That point has long since been passed for Yahoo - are you familiar with the name Terry Semel?
posted by influx at 5:34 AM on February 3, 2008

Anyone else getting a "500 - Internal Server Error" for the Techcrunch link and Techcrunch in general? Strange, no? Is anyone else reporting this story? CNN Money isn't.
posted by mediareport at 5:50 AM on February 3, 2008

I get a 500 error too, and googling around led to these:
News Corp Trying to Mount Yahoo Bid
News Corp not interested in Yahoo: source
posted by danb at 6:25 AM on February 3, 2008

It feels like Yahoo is stranded out in the desert and the vultures are circling. Giant, ugly, disgusting vultures. I can't believe that I'm rooting for MS on this one.
posted by purephase at 7:00 AM on February 3, 2008

When does google put in a bid? They have the money.
posted by empath at 7:04 AM on February 3, 2008

It feels like Yahoo is stranded out in the desert and the vultures are circling. Giant, ugly, disgusting vultures. I can't believe that I'm rooting for MS on this one.

I thought that things were looking up for Yahoo with their recent acquisitions -- namely, Flickr, del.icio.us, and Upcoming (granted, Flickr is the only one popular enough to be really significant). They didn't screw up any of them. I am not so confident about Microsoft's ability to do the same.
posted by danb at 7:08 AM on February 3, 2008

I'm buying shares in chair manufacturers
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 7:12 AM on February 3, 2008

Weirdly, this is beginning to have shades of DoubleClick - face it, Microsoft's a lousy company, but not an evil one. News Corp is an evil company.

If I was Yahoo's board, if I got a serious bid from News Corp, I'd take the bid from Microsoft if it didn't look like they were going any higher.
posted by BrianBoyko at 7:12 AM on February 3, 2008

You searched for "Obama" 0 results. Try searching for "Hussein Obama."
posted by a robot made out of meat at 7:35 AM on February 3, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Well, now that the first link is back up, here's what we have:

According to our source, other big private equity funds were busy today, too. Taking calls from News Corp., that is...Today, News Corp. was supposedly making calls to put together a syndicate and make a counter offer to what Microsoft put on the table. No takers so far, we hear.

That's it. An anonymous rumor in a short blog post. This is pretty thin stuff.
posted by mediareport at 8:05 AM on February 3, 2008