Google responds to the Microsoft bid for Yahoo!
By Dave Parrack
On Friday, Microsoft launched a hostile, and ambitious takeover bid for Yahoo! Since then, there has been much talk about Google being the main reason for this takeover attempt, and what the thinking would be over at Google headquarters. Now Google has officially responded, and surprise surprise, they don’t like it.
Microsoft has offered Yahoo!’s board of directors $31 per share in an unsolicited bid, which values the company at a massive $44.6 billion.
Yesterday, News Corp also seemed to throw their hat in to the ring, although no details have yet emerged about the numbers, or plans that could be involved.
Now Google, after obviously spending a couple of days mulling over the news, and deciding how best to respond, has come out fighting, and given its views on the subject.
David Drummond, Senior Vice President of Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer has posted on the official Google blog, denouncing the move, and claiming the “hostile bid for Yahoo! raises troubling questions.” He goes on to say:
“This is about more than simply a financial transaction, one company taking over another. It’s about preserving the underlying principles of the Internet: openness and innovation.”
“Could Microsoft now attempt to exert the same sort of inappropriate and illegal influence over the Internet that it did with the PC?”
“Could the acquisition of Yahoo! allow Microsoft — despite its legacy of serious legal and regulatory offenses — to extend unfair practices from browsers and operating systems to the Internet?”
“Could a combination of the two [portals] take advantage of a PC software monopoly to unfairly limit the ability of consumers to freely access competitors’ email, IM, and web-based services?”
So, it’s fair to say they’re pissed. But why? Well for years Google has been the small fry, with Microsoft playing the part of the shark swallowing all the other fishes around it. But that is no longer the case, and instead Google have now superseded them, and are eating all the page views, search traffic, and advertising bucks available.
A combination of Microsoft’s marketing and monopolistic tendencies, coupled with Yahoo!’s branding could offer some serious competition to Google, and this possibility is clearly being baulked at over at Google HQ.
This situation isn’t going to be resolved overnight, with the prospect of rival bids, and watchdogs reviewing any possible deal for monopolistic overtones, so it seems Google is coming out fighting with a very aggressive opening move in what will surely become a long, drawn out game of chess.
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February 3rd, 2008
Looks like google needs to buckle themselves up. Competition is always good (for us users =P).
February 5th, 2008
this is so not true
i know myself more then anyone other then my mom and dad and my brother!!!!!!
so dot go sayin that u knwo me better then i knwo myself