I just don't understand why Microsoft wants Yahoo! so badly.
They may have a lot of money, but $44.6 billion seems outrageous.

"This is your last chance Jabba. Free us, or die."

Ballmer scares me.. :(

How can Yahoo! be worth $44,600,000,000?! Are their profits, assets and potential so high that this is a reasonable price? I can see potential in smaller companies being bought by big companies, but Yahoo! is already well established and has fingers in many pies.

Then again, I see simple price comparison websites being valued in the billions, and I think that it is madness. I guess the commission on referral mounts up when you have millions of people using you.

I guess I haven't really been following Yahoo!'s business dealings and services really, so I don't know all the stuff they're doing, so maybe it isn't that far off a reasonable price. Clearly the Yahoo! people think they're worth more because of future offerings they have in the pipelines...

The basis of Yahoo's worth principally is NOT technological, rather its due to its user base.

Yahoo's user base is around at MOST 130 million users for any given month. Of course most of that figure for the next month will be the very same users.

Google is definitely cutting into Yahoo's user base as time goes on. Moreover there is increasing competition from all manner of other competitors.

Given truly adequate development of a competing product (say an absurd expenditure of 1 billion for software and another 4 for hardware). That would leave almost 40 billion to spend on various adds to lurer customers from Yahoo.

Lets see 130 million X 10 = 1.3 billion

1.3 billion X 10 = 13 billion

13 billion X 3 = 39 billion

That means that 10 times 10 times 3, or 300 bucks could literally be GIVEN to each potential customer for them to "switch" to the newer MS system.

A far greater potential however would occur if they simply had a 1 million dollar lottery for users every *DAY* for inducement (i.e. use the service for at least 5 minutes a day and your entered). 365 million a year in pay-out would barely scratch the surface on THE INCOME GENERATED BY 40 Billion at even a very low interest rate. (i.e. Just a pitiful one percent rate of return would cover the cost.)

Is Ballmer an idiot: YES!

I thought hostile takeovers were illegal.

I'm not exactly pro MS, but Yahoo sounds like a bunch of whiny turds.
"Waahh, give us moooore, waaah, Suzie got more than meeee"
The way Yahoo's market is going, they should be grateful that a company with pockets deep enough as MS is willing to take on their assets. Obviously nobody else is bothering to do so. You think they'd get a clue when their stocks jumped after MS's first bid.

And I agree with no51, I hope that one way or another it doesn't work out (though I'm sure MS will take over whether we like it or not) so we can see MSN flounder some more in this market and likewise see Yahoo utterly fail for being a bunch of stuck up pompous pricks.

To be honest, either way it goes won't really affect my daily life. I've been using hotmail for so long the positives of other services aren't that compelling and Google pwnzorz the search market so who cares what MSN or Yahoo is doing. Yahoo and MSN search could completely disappear tomorrow and I wouldn't even notice.

I find Yahoo finance to be fairly useful. I also like the idea of more companies in the general portal space just to keep some options. Also my main email which I've had for 10 years is a yahoo account, I'd hate to lose that :/

Nice company you got there ... Be a shame if some flying chairs were to happen to it.

And in a personal chat with Yahoo board members he also said 'If you don't OK the buyout I'll go monkey boy on your ass too.'

I really hpoe MS doesn't buy out Yahoo but there's not much that can be done to stop the hostile takeover and if I was a shareholder I'd be happoier for the increased value.

Another death to a well known website... Goobye yahoo... too bad my grandchildren cant see you then in the future.

Yahoo's full value? They don't have any value. This is just such a bad deal...

For one I'd love MS buys yahoo.
$44,6 Billion failure may be the begining of their end.

I hope Microsoft backs out of this deal. That way Yahoo stocks will plummet and I can say "I told you so."

Nice response, somehow i don't think the stockholders will feel that way when given the direct offers. Correct me if i'm wrong.