Yahoo! is shooting in all directions hoping that something falls from the heavens. First it was Google, then it was News Corp., then it was AOL. In short, anyone but Microsoft. But as the deadlines nears and Microsoft and Yahoo try their best to outsmart each other, the battle lines appear to be re-drawn all of a sudden. The mighty News Corp. appears to have joined hands with Microsoft while Yahoo has teamed up with AOL and simultaneously announced an ad deal with Google.
At the moment though it looks like Yahoo will do a deal with any company that wants one! If you put the numbers aside, the Yahoo-AOL merger can be a good one. Both companies are quite lost and desperately in need of new direction. AOL more so, than Yahoo. An merged company with new leadership could keep Wall Street off their backs for a year and half at the least. This could give the companies’ some time to get their act together in the midst of the overall downturn in the market.
The Microsoft-News Corp. combination is bound to be hard to fend off. It would be sad to see Yahoo disappear to an acquisition (my earlier analysis not withstanding) . But at this point, the game is far from over. In fact, it might just be the beginning of a long battle provided Yahoo can turn in some decent quarterly numbers later this month.
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