Ballmer: 'We are done' with Yahoo acquisition idea

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer threw his daily bucket of cold water on the notion that the software maker will return with a new bid for all of Yahoo.

"We are done with all acquisition discussions with Yahoo," Ballmer said, adding that he has said this a bunch of times but that some people remain "confused."

"We did our best," he said. "We've moved on."

His comments came at the company's annual shareholders meeting Wednesday in Bellevue, Wash., not far from the company's Redmond headquarters. Ballmer, whose address was offered live via Webcast, made no reference to Yahoo in his prepared remarks, but it was the first shareholder question.

Speculation was rekindled this week after Yahoo announced that it is searching for a new CEO to replace Jerry Yang, who will step down once the new executive is hired.

Yahoo's shares plummeted Wednesday in response to Ballmer's comments, falling about 15 percent to $9.79 a share in morning trading. The reaction comes just a day after Yahoo's shares jumped as high as 16 percent in intraday trading, following the news about Yang.

While Ballmer rejected the notion that Microsoft would return with a new offer to buy Yahoo, he reiterated that the idea of a search partnership remains "an interesting possibility."

"There's no active discussion on that front, but we'd be very open to it," Ballmer said.

Dawn Kawamoto of CNET News contributed to this report.

[Cube Over]

Combining two losers won't unsettle the top guy.<br />Developing new innovative services would. Mergers are loser's strategy.<br />Companies are not so simple as elementary particles - they are more complex, like cars.<br />Wrecking one into another will not result in a new innovative and faster vehicle.

[SHADuck]

Hurray! Move on Msft ...

[Seaspray0]

Does this mean yahoo stock is now ripe for the nigerian stock scams?

[Penguinisto]

Err, MSFT threw a big fat bucket of cold water on any possibility of any partnership with Yahoo when they demanded/bribed/whatever the gov't to nix Google/Yahoo.

[darkr]

UMMMMMm if you check your history right the government and the advertisers were against at google controling 90% of the search market as a result of a yahoo/google partnership<br /><br />along with alot of senators<br /><br />plus if you check the senator from google's home state was the only one that supported it dispite his colleges misgivings on a deal which would've given google a monoply on advertising pricing