So here we are a couple days later and not that much has changed. After the initial boom of news there wasn't much left to say. But there are a few tidbits I wanted to follow up on.
It appears that Microsoft is employing the ol' Carrot and the Stick strategy by first making their offer privately but then giving Yahoo only 2 days to respond before they made it public. I suspect Microsoft senses resistance on their end and wanted to force a quick decision by offering a huge premium with a short time table.
In that vein I was surprised by Steve Ballmer's tone in his e-mail to Microsoft employees. To read the e-mail you would think the deal is already done. Then again, given the meteoric rise of Yahoo's stock on Friday I suspect the deal might very well be done whether Yahoo management likes it or not
I did find it amusing that Microsoft's stock fell on Friday though. Seems to suggest Wall Street still has no faith in Yahoo.
I was initially surprised that someone else would even think of making a bid for Yahoo. But after considering it for a while there are still some interesting possibilities there. Though I think they involve splitting the company in pieces. Yahoo more than probably any other tech company is worth more than the sum of its parts. I'd bet that Flickr alone might be (over)valued as high as Yahoo were they not tied to Yahoo.
On a final note, major props to Aaron Stannard of Ajax Marketing Ninja who called this a month ago. I'm sad to admit it but my first thought when I found out about this wasn't "Wow he's smart" or "That's a really great job" it was "Please God let him be right on #5 too".
(and off topic may I just say for the record, Please God let him be right on #5 too...because I'm at the end of my rope with it at this point)