Microsoft's unsolicited 44.6 billion Yahoo takeover bid

The version of this story that my comments are based on can be found in whole here:

http://kdka.com/national/microsoft.yahoo.bid.2.643212.html

The version of this article which my comments are based on - IE> the time & date stamp affixed to it by CBS, is / was Feb 01, 2008, 1:00 PM US/EST. I encourage those interested in this kind of story to read that story in whole. Below are some select excerpts with my comments.

Microsoft Corp. has pounced on slumping Internet icon Yahoo Inc. with an unsolicited takeover offer of $44.6 billion in its boldest bid yet to challenge Google Inc.'s dominance of the lucrative online search and advertising markets. The Justice Department says it is interested in reviewing antitrust issues associated with it.

As I understand the meaning of pounced in this context, whenever a corporation agrees to be publicly traded, it is at risk in various ways, including at risk for being pounced on... unsolicited, just like the story implies. Although it's far more complicated to see, this is not at all unlike common people, like citizens, who, whether they know it or not, are publicly traded. Note the vested interest of the Justice Department. Also note that the SCOTUS ruled many moons ago that for business purposes - such as but not limited to tax purposes, a corporation is a person. By extension, the reverse holds as well; a person is a corporation. For business purposes, even when regular people have not knowingly solicited nor outwardly contracted with intention and informed consent to be a corporation in any way[s] that they are aware of, people can be and frequently are treated - for business purposes, as a corporation. For purposes including business and not, it is nonetheless important for real flesh & blood people to hang on to so as to remember the important distinction; corporations are fictional entities, where as real people are bonafied, real, animated, flesh & blood humans. While the two cannot tever successfuly be merged, this does not stop some people from pretending that they can and therefore this does not stop some people from trying to merge the two as though they are one and the same. Why else does anyone think we have so been witness to escalations in the many bizarre events and oddities increasingly manifesting in this present world? Truth is stranger than fiction, as they say. What has been increasingly manifesting in our world for, conservatively speaking, the past century, and which many people have in turn been observing in bits and pieces, are the results of what happens when certain people attempt to use brute force in the merging of legal fictions with flesh & blood facts.

The announcement lifted Yahoo's share price by almost 50 percent in morning trading, while Google fell almost 8 percent, dragged down by a fourth-quarter earnings report that missed Wall Street expectations.

Without due consideration of any of the many other issues tied to this takeover bid, how many people would instinctively agree that pretty much any situation in the present that causes a slumping Wall Street commodity - stock item, to surge by 50 percent, is a good thing "for the people" in view of a slumping U.S. economy that is itself manifesting amid the backdrop of a slumping U.S. state that is itself filled up with increasingly slumping people with lives increasingly filled up with slumping rationale, priorities, common sense, values and behavior that follows from such? How many people know, think, believe, hope, wish or suspect that the ultimate decision in this takeover will be based upon having taken into consideration the impact upon the many lives of the average little people helping to presently make up Yahoo Inc?

Since reaching a 52-week high of $34.08 in October, Yahoo shares have fallen 46 percent. Yahoo climbed $9.41 a share, or 49 percent, to $28.59 in morning trading. Microsoft shares fell $1.43, or 4.4 percent, to $31.17.

Microsoft publicly disclosed its cash-and-stock offer in hopes of rallying support from Yahoo's shareholders, making it more difficult for Yahoo's board to turn down the bid.

How many still know, think, believe, hope, wish or suspect?

Microsoft didn't leave any doubt that one of the reasons for the acquisition is to better compete with Google," said CBS News technology analyst Larry Magid. "Yahoo has been struggling lately and Microsoft has never had a dominant online product. Perhaps by combining forces, they can give Google the competition that it now lacks."

How many people know, think or suspect that they know what the aforementioend dominant online product is that Microsoft is pursuing, unsolicited, to the tune of 44 billion bux? In my opinion, it is among the things critically important for people at large to have a grasp of understanding for whether or not they - the people among those at large, spend much of their life using the Internet or not. Does that not seem like a fairly hefty amount of ammo for which to solicit unsolicited favors?

Microsoft views Yahoo as its best chance to thwart Google, which has leveraged its leadership in Internet search and advertising to emerge as an increasingly serious threat to the world's largest software maker's persuasive influence on how people interact with computers.

Google already controls nearly 60 percent of the U.S. search market, and has been widening its lead, despite concerted efforts by both second-place Yahoo and third-place Microsoft. By combining, Microsoft and Yahoo would have a 33 percent share of the U.S. search market, according to the latest data from comScore Media Metrix.

By joining forces, Microsoft and Yahoo also would widen their narrowing advantage over Google in providing free e-mail accounts - a service that helps foster more loyalty with users and create more advertising opportunities.

Advertisers around the world are expected to double their spending on the Internet during the next three years as more people get their news and entertainment on the Web instead of television, radio, newspapers and magazine. The trend is expected to create an $80 billion online ad market in 2010, up from an estimated $40 billion last year.

Despite an aggressive push in recent years, Microsoft's online advertising expansion hasn't paid off. Last week, the Redmond, Wash.-based company reported a 79 percent jump in its overall profit, but its online division's loss widened to $245 million.

How many people know, think, supsect or are at least wondering how it is that Internet searches become highly sought after dominant on line products that produce the kind of profit hinted at by a 44 billion dollar investment? Try to keep this in mind the next time you do a web search, be it Google, Yahoo, or other. Especially keep this in mind if you should ever ask yourself - gee, self, just how did this particular search list results end up in the giver order of relevance that it did? Also keep in mind that relevance from the perspective of how/what/why you were searching for information in the first place is more often than not totally different than the perspective that your search list results were provided ESPECIALLY as provided by free services like Google, Yahoo and other web search engines.

Besides helping to boost its online ad revenue, Microsoft believes it could mine more profit from Yahoo by jettisoning workers and eliminating overlapping operations.

Microsoft said it sees at least $1 billion in cost savings if it buys Yahoo. Microsoft executives deflected questions about how many jobs might be lost, but the company emphasized retention packages will be offered to Yahoo engineers and other key employees, including some executives.

Just to put this all in context of my thoughts and opinions, it was 3 years ago to the month that I officially and rather unceremoniously unplugged from tv as an overall effort - and symbol, of my desire to beging the process of peeling away some of the many layers of illusion that had been plugged into me over the course of 45 years. In my naivety, I did not then immediately fathom nor appreicate the many indirect channels there remained for things MSM to still find their way into my consciousness. This particular naivety of unplugging soon changed, to the extent that I then realized beyond doubt that short of deciding to live under a rock, forever, which I am still not want to do, one can never ever fulling unplug after having spend 40-some years plugged in. Yeah, that was a bit unsettling, but not really all that much more unsettling than the 1001 other ways I've been unsettled by events of the past 2, 3, 5 to 10 years. Be this as it may, I continue on down this often murky, every uncertain path with the attitude of remaining unswerved no matter how serious the assaults end up being to swerve me from this path.There was a time not long ago when I often said to myself - how do they DO that? upon conducting a web search on an one of many volatile issues for which there are reems of murky information resources to be found out there, only to find, once again, the Wiki folks proudly at the top of the list of results; money, that's how, plain and simple. Since that time I've adopted my own adaptation to searching in hopes of improving the legitimacy of results returned. It's not perfect, but often provides more of the kind of results I seek.... your mileage may vary. I search using Scroogle, which is merely a google scraper. I usually use a search term that asks for a list of 100 results. When the results are returned, I scroll to the very bottom of the list - the 100th entry, and begin browsing these results from the bottom up. Often times, this course of discovery allows me to find useful information without the need of ever coming very close at all to the upper echeclon of search results provided .... dominant online highly coveted online mega $$$ product that it is.