Yahoo Looks To Google?

The plot might be fresh, but it’s already beginning to twist and turn. According to Reuters, Microsoft might have offered $44.6 billion for Yahoo, but it’s anything but a done deal.

 

Not only have Yahoo heads told employees that nothing is happening – at least to this point – with the Redmond giant, but one source told the news agency that Yahoo might well consider an alliance with search (and now everything else) giant Google, pursuing something the two companies had first discussed several months ago.

 

In fact, the Wall Street Journal said, Google’s CEO had called Jerry Yang, the CEO of Yahoo, to offer his company’s help.

 

Of course, any takeover of Yahoo would raise antitrust issues, and might not be allowed under law. But in blogs Microsoft and Google are already taking potshots at each other. A Microsoft blog said that a takeover would create a "compelling number two competitor for Internet search and online advertising."

 

But Google chief legal officer David Drummond wondered whether “a combination of the two take advantage of a PC software monopoly to unfairly limit the ability of consumers to freely access competitors' email, IM, and Web-based services?"

 

The bid has created ripples that extend far beyond the computing industry, helping to give a boost to Asian stock markets this morning.