11: They just like the name, "Micro-Hoo!"

12: It's another opportunity to push their awfully annoying SilverLight thing down our throats.

Joe, I couldn't agree with you more on this bone-headed idea to buy Yahoo. There is precious little upside to the whole idea.

This is what happens when you leave Steve Ballmer in charge with billions of dollars at his disposal, he'll find the first hair-brained idea to throw it at instead of improving and fixing the leaking boat of Microsoft.

There are a ton of things Microsoft could do with $45 billion instead of purchasing Yahoo. But Steve Ballmer is too stupid to think of them.

Somebody please remove this man from command before it is too late for Microsoft.

Very funny Joe , i enjoyed it :)

We're watching Microsoft admit to defeat in the web arena. They have to find somebody else to front their internet products, it's that simple!

Great comments. MS has been trying for a "real" Internet presence for years. They still have no clue. They think $44 billion will make up for all their previous blunders.

By the way, once they have Yahoo what happens to MSN? I certainly would like to be a fly on the wall at the MS board meeting concerning that issue.

For you head hunters out there, start calling the MSN management team. Could be a real fertile search area....right along side Yahoo. I think both management teams know this will never work.

Really Ballmer is Google's employed ("planted" by Google some time ago)
Manoeuvre thought by Ballmer and Bill to shirk from Bill's wife and her charities.
That was Ballmer's April Fools' joke. But his Secretary found it ... and faxed it.
-----------
Seriously;
Google, Yahoo Software Takes on Outlook
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2256524,00.asp
Business software units of Yahoo Inc and Google Inc are introducing beefed-up versions of their Web-based software that compete with Microsoft Outlook, offering yet another clue why Microsoft Corp made a $45 billion unsolicited bid for Yahoo.

While Microsoft views Yahoo as its path into the lucrative Web advertising market dominated by Google, Tuesday's software announcements by Yahoo and Google demonstrate that Microsoft also needs to fend off potential challenges to its business software franchises.
Annually, Postini spam protection starts at 25 cents a month per user while message filtering costs $1 a month. The software can work with e-mail systems such as Microsoft Outlook, International Business Machines Corp's Lotus Notes or Novell Inc's Groupwise.

Office workers can search back through years of e-mail as a free side benefit when their companies buy Postini's legal discovery feature to meet compliance requirements of laws aimed at preventing white-collar crime. This feature costs $25 per user per year and $10 for each additional year of archiving.

Wrong again as usual Joe, 3rd should be 1st...or is that 2nd...

I am in no means insinuating that things were just peachy keen under young William Gates, however...

Is it just me, or does it seem that things have gotten noticeably worse (bad business decisions, bad products, slow to market products, incomplete products, swiss-cheese products, blowing money like a drunken sailor) since Steven "Goofball" Ballmer took over the reins as CEO?

Or perhaps, my #11 would be that Mr. Ballmer is trying to manipulate the price of MS stock (ala I-Menst), so that he can purchase a ton of shares on the cheap. Then hand the company over to someone who will run it right and maximize his financial potential?

My personal note: I hope MS clears all hurdles and acquires Yahoo! just to see how bad it will be. To sit back and laugh at how a company that can throw 45 billions dollars away wasn't smart enough to use just a fraction of that money to hire talent to do thing right!

I think I am going to go out and buy a Mac with Leopard, because I think support for it will be available for much longer than Vista.

So you do know what the future brings, don't you?

Microsoft shares will continue to drop because Ballmer has telegraphed to everyone they have to have Yahoo or they won't live on the internet.

Yahoo shares will rise because Microsoft will more than likely have to raise the offer price or they will have to back out.

Microsoft raises the price, the Microsoft share will drop farther, demanding Microsoft borrow more cash for the deal.

Microsoft backs out, the entire industry and market comes to the FULL realization Microsoft products won't be able to succeed on the internet.

What a parade down mainstreet Steve Ballmer has made in his wonderful clothes... those clothes woven by his lawyers, by Ozzie, and by all the yes men who've managed to pet him and fool him while they all slithered out the back door.

Ballmer, you're one hell of a specimen. No doubt they'll need a lid on that jar to keep from stinking the world up.

http://messages.finance.yahoo.com/Stocks_%28A_to_Z%29/Stocks_M/threadview?m=tm&bn=12004&tid=1341469&mid=1341469&tof=5&frt=1

"The Real Reasons Microsoft Wants to Buy Yahoo"

B. Gates and S. Ballmer remind me of two cartoon figures, Pinky and the Brain;
What are we going do tonight Brian; Same thing we do every night Pinky, take over the world."

And that folks, is what they want to use Yahoo for, to take over the internet. Google might be a monopoly, but it does not behave in the same unethical practices of Microsoft, which is why I like google, and despise MS.
http://www.citynews.ca/news/news_19237.aspx
"It claims a Microsoft-owned Yahoo would stifle innovation and force Windows-oriented programs and interfaces on everyone with its tremendous clout, most notably in the area of email and instant messaging (IM). And it points to the infamous anti-trust suit the Redmond, Washington giant is still trying to deal with as a result of pushing its Internet Explorer browser on computer owners.

"Could Microsoft now attempt to exert the same sort of inappropriate and illegal influence over the Internet that it did with the PC?"

11. Microsoft plans to use Yahoo to launch a set of applications to compete with Apple. They will be called yaLife and will be released yaKnow, someday.

12. After the rather dubious migration from Hotmail's BSD servers to Windows and back and then again and then back again and so forth. Microsoft is now ready to try it again. Yahoo will be purchased to test drive the migration to Windows Server 2008. A 44 billion add campaign to prove that Microsoft also has big iron.

13. Microsoft realized that Yahoo is competition to Google. Thus by buying Yahoo and then sinking it, Microsoft can then send the US government against Google. With charges of monopolistic foul play.

14. Some emails with information that could be used against MS in the EU is stored in some long forgotten Yahoo accounts. Microsoft wants to buy Yahoo to get those letters back and thus not lose more EU cases.

15. What comes after X in the alphabet? You got it right! Y. The soon to be released YBox (by Microsoft's standards) will run on Yahoo's grid. Thus preventing the horrible gaming issues we had after Christmas with XBox.

You know, in all seriousness, MS/Ballmer honestly truly believe that this is what MS needs, to not only compete with Google, but to knock Google off its throne. He/they really believe that a combined MS/Yahoo will be so strong and will come at Google with the best talent in the industry.

I mean it is absolutely hysterical. What ignorance, what pompousness, what ego (that needs to be stroked). Hello?!? Earth calling Ballmer! Do you all really think the people at Yahoo are going to assimilate nice and quietly and help MS become the leading web presence? Like MS will get great synergy between the two camps. I predict (if it does happen), it will be a clusterf***. Can you imagine the clicks, the divisions, the infighting? You think Ballmer looks like a fool now? I am stocking up on popcorn.

Maybe it's God's way of saying to Microsoft and showing the world, "Look fools, you're making too much money..."

It's obvious (to me) that all the good people left Microsoft years ago right around the W2K and early XP development days.

After working a few years in State Government, (surrounded by Microsoft Drones and assorted idiots) that I came up with the realization that there are more stupid people in this world than smart ones, and certainly Microsoft proves my point. So my next question I subject is this, "Who's the bigger fool(s), those in Microsoft, or those following (Microsoft Drones) Microsoft?"

So Microsoft can collect royalties from users whenever one of them yells "Yahoo!" in emulation of their CEO (see item #7 in Joe's list). If the general population is unaware of this new copyright on a common interjection, they are in for a rude and expensive surprise. In this way Microsoft can finance their purchase.

...and of course they're going to need a real humdinger of a reason to explain why Dimdows 7 will be late.

Is AOL Google`s Counter for Microhoo?

..."If Microsoft does buy Yahoo, it may well trigger another round of industry consolidation involving Google, AOL and others,"...

lol
lol
whats with the googol/google joke lol
why do you always spell Yahoo! wrong, its "Yahoo!" not "Yahoo" lol :P

Microsoft has no choice but to pursue Yahoo until they get it. There is nobody else they can buy with any credibility.

Think of the arguments when they announce they aren't pursuing Yahoo anymore.

You wanted Yahoo, but you said that's because you needed Yahoo's engineering talent to build a better web system. Who else will you go after now?

"We have world class talent. We can build whatever we want for the web..."

Why haven't you done it before now? Why haven't you rolled out at least previews of your products? Why haven't we seen any development on any of the things Ozzie has promised?

Why? WHy? WHY?

Boy, Ballmer. You stepped in it so deep there's poop on your unusually slick head.

Yahoo's board of directors has formally rejected my overtures to take over their sinking ship just as I thought they would! The journalist are making this into a big deal, but it's really not, it's called NEGOTIATION people! I understand that it's negotiating on a level waaaaay above anything you people have ever experienced so I will try to put it in terms that you all can understand.
I'll use a parable:

When I was in my freshman year I became infatuated whith a hot little number named Yolanda (dang she was fine).
All of my friends kept saying, "Steve, she is out of your league!" I would reply, "waddayah mean?" They would answer, "she's beautiful and smart". But, did I listen to them? Well, yes. Until one day, she came up to me and said, "Hi Steve, I'm Yolanda, my brother's friend Bill says that you like me and would probablly be willing to do all of my accounting assignments for me."
I replied in a masculine tone "why, sure Yolanda, but it'll cost you a date." She sighed, stared, rolled her eyes and said, "tonight, 8 PM, behind the bleecchers!" She then handed me a huge wad of papers," have all of these done when you come, toad!"

As she turned and marched away, I yelled (loud enough for all of my friends to hear), "It's a date baby! I'll bring a blanket!" (I always had a way of speaking to the ladies that just made them go wild)

I ran back to the dorm, skipped two classes, it took a lot of crunching but I finished all of the test, reports and assignments for her by 7:45, I boxed it all up, grabbed my Farrah Blanket, ran across campus and made it under the bleechers at exactly 8:01 PM.

She said, "You are late! Gimme the papers!" I gave her the box, then I spread the Farrah Blanket out. She threw me two pair of handcuffs and said sweetly, "Get down on your hands and knees, cuff your wrist and ankles, lay down on the blanket, eyes closed!" I complied and said, "Kinkyyyyy!" She then said in a very sexy tone, "I'll be right back sweetie."
I stayed there, eyes close, waiting for about two hours before I realised she tricked me!

I knew though that she would be coming back, because in my rush to get there I brought her a shoebox containing my old converse high tops! ew!

Yahoo will be back too.

Berber says: "since Steven "Goofball" Ballmer took over the reins as CEO?"
Please temper your criticism Mr. Berber.
Steven Ballmer is the best monkey-boy dancer Microsoft has ever had!