Online services

Here is the text of an internal memo Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer sent Saturday afternoon to Microsoft employees:

From: Steve Ballmer

Sent: Saturday, May 03, 2008 5:18 PM

To: Microsoft - All Employees (QBDG)

Subject: Withdrawal of Offer to Acquire Yahoo!

This afternoon I sent the attached letter to Jerry Yang announcing that Microsoft has withdrawn its proposal to acquire Yahoo. We proposed the deal in the belief that a Microsoft-Yahoo merger would create a combined company with the resources and assets to win in the fast-growing market for advertising and online services.

Although the acquisition of Yahoo would … Read more

Microsoft says its offer for Yahoo is off the table, but could this be just a negotiating ploy?

It's a natural question to ask. I mean, if Microsoft has had the hots for Yahoo for two years, can it really be so sure that it is no longer interested?

My take is that Microsoft has ruled out two options, but that one possibility for Yahoo remains out there.

Clearly, Microsoft is not having luck getting Yahoo to consider the price it is willing to pay, so the direct option hasn't worked. CEO Steve Ballmer says that Microsoft has … Read more

With Yahoo apparently off the table, it's time to see what Microsoft's back-up plan looks like.

Microsoft has said for some time that it has a strategy with or without Yahoo, but it's a strategy clearly in need of a jump-start.

In search, for example, Microsoft has been trying to take on Google for some time, but it remains a distant third in search queries and also has struggled in the all-important battle of monetizing each search query.

Microsoft outlined two key reasons for buying Yahoo--adding its talented engineers and getting the significant boost in scale that … Read more

Microsoft officially pulled its offer for Yahoo on Saturday, confirming an earlier report by CNET News.com.

In a letter to Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang, Microsoft chief Steve Ballmer confirmed that Microsoft was willing to offer $33 a share, but that Yahoo was holding out for at least $37 a share, or $5 billion more than Microsoft was prepared to spend. In the letter, Ballmer also says he is ruling out a direct offer to shareholders.

"This approach would necessarily involve a protracted proxy contest and eventually an exchange offer," Ballmer said. "Our discussions with you have … Read more

Update 5 p.m. PDT: Microsoft has made its move official. Click here for the story and here for the text of a letter Ballmer sent to Yang.

Microsoft is withdrawing its offer for Yahoo after talks between the two companies broke down on Saturday, a source told CNET News.com.

Microsoft hiked its offer to $33 a share, but Yahoo was holding out for $37 a share, the source said. The two sides met face to face again Saturday, but remained far apart.

Although price was a key issue, Microsoft also had strategic concerns and saw it as unlikely … Read more

Microsoft's discussions with Yahoo "intensified" Friday as the two companies considered possibilities for a last-minute friendly acquisition, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing anonymous sources.

While a deal is far from imminent, the two sides are talking more directly than they have for some time, a source familiar with the situation told CNET News.com. The talks, which picked up steam on Friday, are being held in the San Francisco Bay Area, with at least some of the parties on both sides meeting in person, the source said.

And The New York Times had a similar assessment, … Read more

Six days have passed since Microsoft's "deadline" for Yahoo to come to the negotiating table. Despite the promise that Microsoft would take action, very little of substance has happened this week.

Rather than spend another day reiterating Microsoft's options or parsing the latest noncommittal statement from Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, I decided to offer a look at some things that have happened in the past six days.

Search metrics Number of searches performed on Google: 1.21 billion Number of searches performed on Yahoo: 441 million Number of searches performed on MSN/Live Search: 197 million … Read more

Even by his own words, Steve Ballmer is in a bind.

The Microsoft chief executive told employees that he has a figure in mind as to what Yahoo is worth, but doesn't plan to pay "a dime above" that amount, according to The Wall Street Journal. At the same time, he concedes that there aren't a whole lot of other options for the software maker to add scale in its battle against Google.

"Look at all the properties on the Internet--everything on the Internet," Ballmer told the Journal in an article published Thursday afternoon. &… Read more

Faced with the same options it has been facing for some time, Microsoft's board apparently just couldn't choose one of the options.

The Wall Street Journal reported late Wednesday that Microsoft's directors failed to decide on a next step for the software maker amid Yahoo's unwillingness to negotiate a deal. The software maker is said to be weighing whether to go directly to Yahoo shareholders and at what price, whether to just nominate its own slate of directors, or whether to walk away from its bid.

Citing sources close to the matter, the Journal said an … Read more