Microsoft faces possible rival bid by NewsCorp for Yahoo
By Erna Mahyuni
Three’s a crowd, they say. Well, tell that to Rupert Murdoch because his media company, NewsCorp, looks set to launch its own bid against Microsoft for Yahoo.
TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington broke the story of NewsCorp’s scrambling to stave off the Microsoft assault. It wasn’t enough that Microsoft’s bid for the search giant caused major excitement in Silicon Valley. No, the possibility of a bidding war is surely going to be tech gossip fodder for the weeks to come.
Microsoft’s surprise bid will put a spanner in NewsCorp’s earlier plans to sell off MySpace in exchange for 25 percent of Yahoo’s stock. MySpace against 44.6 billion dollars of real money? For Yahoo’s board, there’s no questioning what looks more attractive. Easier to take the money and leave the worries for Yahoo’s future to Microsoft.
Still, will Microsoft and Yahoo’s combined forces be enough to topple the Google juggernaut? And will absorbing the competition be enough to give Microsoft the lead in the search stakes?
Both companies made the mistake of underestimating Google’s potential. Both found themselves playing catchup, copying or playing the reactive game while Google won the search wars and is still king of the Web advertising heap. And in the end, their merger will prove fruitless if their combined weaknesses overwhelms their strengths. Better Microsoft than NewsCorp, some say. Whoever it is, they’d better hurry up before the Yahoo name outlives its sell-by date.
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