Digg to Microsoft: Thanks, We'll Take it From Here – MarketingVOX April 21, 2009
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a commentDigg to Microsoft: Thanks, We’ll Take it From Here – MarketingVOX
also read more on this CNET report.
Microsoft rolls out b-to-b campaign January 14, 2009
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a commentRead the Story —>HERE
Microsoft names president of online service group December 5, 2008
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a commentRedmond, Wash.—Microsoft Corp. announced that Oi Lu will join the company as president of its online services group, effective Jan. 5.
Read The Rest—>Microsoft names president of online service group
Microsoft's Ballmer `Done' With Talks to Buy Yahoo (Update2) November 19, 2008
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a commentBy Dina Bass and Crayton Harrison
Nov. 19 (Bloomberg) — Microsoft Corp. Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer said all acquisition talks with Yahoo! Inc. are “done,” even after Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang announced plans to step down. Yahoo fell as much as 20 percent in Nasdaq trading.
“We thought we had something that made sense. Didn’t make sense to them. We’ve moved on,” Ballmer, 52, said today at a shareholder meeting in Bellevue, Washington. He reiterated that a partnership between Microsoft and Yahoo in the Internet-search market is an “an interesting possibility.” There are no talks about such an agreement, he said today.
Read The Rest—>Microsoft’s Ballmer `Done’ With Talks to Buy Yahoo (Update2)
Jerry Yang, Yahoo Chief, Steps Down November 19, 2008
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a commentSAN FRANCISCO — Jerry Yang, who, as chief executive of Yahoo, resisted a takeover bid from Microsoft only to later ask that merger talks resume, said he was stepping down.
In a memorandum sent to the company’s staff Monday evening, Mr. Yang, 40, said he would hold the post until the board names his successor, a process he said he would participate in. The Yahoo co-founder said he would then return to his previous job as “chief Yahoo,” a corporate strategy role, and would remain on the board.
In a memorandum typed in his style using no capital letters, he wrote, “i strongly believe that having transformed our platform and better aligned costs and revenues, we have a unique window for the right ceo to take ownership over the next wave of mission-critical decisions facing the company.”
The announcement comes a year and a half after Mr. Yang assumed control of Yahoo from Terry Semel, a Hollywood studio boss that he handpicked for the job. Mr. Yang’s tenure has been marked by a precipitously declining stock price and the high profile collapse of a $44 billion acquisition offer from Microsoft last spring.
A Yahoo spokesman described the decision as “mutual” and “in progress for a while.”
Read The Rest—> Jerry Yang, Yahoo Chief, Steps Down
Yahoo Puts 'For Sale' Sign Back on Front Lawn – MarketingVOX November 7, 2008
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a commentIt was the plea heard ’round the world: “To this day the best thing for Microsoft to do is buy Yahoo.”
Jerry Yang — now openly referred to as “beleaguered” and “embattled” by the media — told a packed ballroom at the Web 2.0 summit in San Francisco that the company could still be bought — at the right price “whatever that price is,” the BBC reported.
The much-criticized CEO attempted to shed some light on the dramatic events of the summer.
Yahoo was ready to negotiate Microsoft’s $44.6 billion takeover bid, he said, but Microsoft “walked away” from the table and has since been clear about its disinterest in buying the entire company, he said. (They later offered to buy just the search portion, but were refused.)
Read The Rest—> Yahoo Puts ‘For Sale’ Sign Back on Front Lawn – MarketingVOX
From the Inside, Jerry Yang Looks Out for Yahoo ( Via New York Times DealBook) July 17, 2008
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a comment“Do you let the fox in the henhouse?”
So asked Jerry Yang, Yahoo’s co-founder and chief executive, as we chatted for more than an hour one afternoon last week at Allen & Company’s annual conference here.
The fox in question, of course, is Carl Icahn, the activist investor who is trying to oust Mr. Yang and the Yahoo board so he can sell the company to Microsoft. “I don’t mean to impugn anyone’s personal integrity,” Mr. Yang quickly added. Let it never be said that Mr. Yang lacks manners.
Yahoo — and Mr. Yang’s fate — were Topic A at the annual billionaires’ summer camp, as rival moguls gossiped about whether Yahoo would end up in the hands of Microsoft. While Mr. Yang casually smoked a cigar Thursday evening outside of the bar with Richard Parsons, the chairman of Time Warner — who himself battled with Mr. Icahn two years ago — the debate was raging at virtually every table.
“There won’t be a deal. There are bad personal feelings,” proclaimed Rupert Murdoch of the News Corporation, who lost his wedding ring that night and got down on all fours — along with half a dozen other mogul types — to search for it. (They didn’t find it.) Another mogul, a longtime friend of Mr. Yang’s, took the opposite view: “He’s a goner.”
What almost no one here knew was that behind the scenes, Mr. Icahn had been conducting an extraordinary round of secret negotiations with Steve Ballmer, the C.E.O. of Microsoft, the result of which was yet another Microsoft offer for Yahoo. The new bid from Microsoft and Mr. Icahn spilled into public view Saturday night. Yahoo quickly rejected it.
For good reason. The deal was so ridiculous — it called for Yahoo to sell its search business to Microsoft and for Mr. Icahn to take over the board of what was left of the company after assets were spun off and dividends paid out — that when the moguls here started to learn the details, it actually began to change the perception of Mr. Yang’s predicament.
To Read the rest of this Article CLICK HERE
Microsoft's dealings with Yahoo! too Complicated? July 15, 2008
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As Microsoft Corp. explores the possibility of making another move for Yahoo Inc., the Internet company continues to flirt with other potential partners.
Yahoo has picked up discussions with Time Warner Inc. over a combination, say people familiar with the situation. The renewed talks come after a lull following Microsoft’s withdrawal in May of its $47.5 billion offer to buy Yahoo. Still, the talks aren’t as serious as they were in April, when a combination valued Time Warner’s AOL unit at about $10 billion. Yahoo’s stock has since declined sharply.
Yahoo rejects joint proposal from Microsoft, Icahn July 14, 2008
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a commentSAN FRANCISCO, California (AP) — Yahoo Inc. has rejected Microsoft’s latest attempt to buy its online search operations in a “take or leave it” proposal that Yahoo said would have dismantled its Internet franchise.
As described by Yahoo in a statement released late Saturday, Microsoft packaged its latest offer with activist investor Carl Icahn, a billionaire who is seeking to overthrow Yahoo’s board of directors in a shareholder meeting scheduled for August 1.
Without providing many specifics, Yahoo said Microsoft renewed an earlier bid to buy the company’s search engine and proposed turning over the remaining pieces to a board controlled by Icahn.
Yahoo said it received the complex proposal Friday and was given less than 24 hours to respond.
Backed into a corner, Yahoo lashed out in a blunt manner likely to inject even more bad blood into its already venomous relationship with Microsoft and Icahn.
“It is ludicrous to think that our board could accept such a proposal,” Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock said in the statement. “While this type of erratic and unpredictable behavior is consistent with what we have come to expect from Microsoft, we will not be bludgeoned into a transaction that is not in the best interests of our stockholders.”
Microsoft did not immediately respond to a request for comment late Saturday. Efforts to reach Icahn were unsuccessful. READ THE REST OF THIS CNN ARTICLE BY CLICKING HERE
Microsoft open to resuming Yahoo talks if board is ousted July 7, 2008
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a commentICAHN AGAIN URGES SHAREHOLDERS TO SELECT NEW BOARD
Source article HERE
Given Yahoo’s current board, which has resisted takeover overtures by Microsoft’s Chief Executive Steve Ballmer, “we have concluded that we cannot reach an agreement with them,” the Redmond, Wash. software giant said in a prepared statement. But if Yahoo’s stockholders select a new board at the company’s Aug. 1 meeting, “we will be prepared to enter into discussions immediately” about buying Yahoo’s Internet search business or the entire company, Microsoft’s statement said. Yahoo responded with its own statement, saying “if Microsoft and Mr. Ballmer really want to purchase Yahoo, we again invite them to make a proposal immediately. And if Mr. Icahn has an actual plan for Yahoo, beyond hoping that Microsoft might actually consummate a deal which they have repeatedly walked away from, we would be very interested in hearing it.” However, Yahoo defended its reluctance to accept Microsoft’s offers. It insisted it was Microsoft that ended their negotiations and that Microsoft’s offer to buy Yahoo’s search business “would not lead to an outcome that would be in the best interests of Yahoo’s stockholders.” Microsoft began a major effort to acquire Yahoo in January, offering at one point to buy the company for $47.5 billion. But Yahoo’s board – especially its Chief Executive, Jerry Yang – balked at the deal, saying the proposed purchase price undervalued their company. After that bid failed, Microsoft’s Ballmer attempted to interest Yahoo in selling just its Internet search function to Microsoft. But those talks also went nowhere and recently Yahoo struck a search-advertisement agreement with Google. All this has enraged some of Yahoo’s shareholders, most notably, Icahn, who claims Yang and the rest of Yahoo’s board made a grievous error in rebuffing Microsoft’s offers. As a result, Icahn is asking Yahoo’s shareholders on Aug. 1 to vote in a new slate of board members, which includes Icahn and others he has chosen who are amenable to a Microsoft takeover.Microsoft said today it is willing to resume negotiations to buy all or part of Yahoo, but only if investor Carl Icahn succeeds in revamping the Sunnyvale Internet company’s board.
