Murdoch could save Yahoo! from Microsoft!

Rupert Murdoch is in talks with Yahoo! aimed at fending off the hostile takeover by Microsoft. Despite repeated denials from News Corp in recent weeks, the two firms are reportedly talking about an alliance based on Murdoch's MySpace. Yahoo! this week officially rejected Microsoft's $44.6bn takeover offer. The deal would see …

[Nicholas McGee]

That old Yahoo! gag...

...it'll never get tired(!)

[alain williams]

Lesser of 2 evils

Although I dislike Murdoch, I dislike him less than I do Microsoft. Also Murdoch does not have quite the 'net presence that MS does and so competition is kept a bit more alive.

[Les]

Frying pan, fire, etc

Cool! Saved from the Evil Empire by the Really Evil Empire!

[marc]

I'd cancel straight away

I currently pay for Yahoo Mail Plus. I'd cancel straight away if I though Murdoch was getting his evil, grubby little hands on my money.

[Anonymous Coward]

Bad, bad, bad

Not much choice really is there?

[Anonymous Coward]

equal of two evils

@ marc: "...I currently pay for Yahoo Mail Plus. I'd cancel straight away if I though Murdoch was getting his evil, grubby little hands on my money..."

i feel similarly about my 'flickr pro' account.

still, look on the bright side - maybe, as part of the deal yahoo will inherit that crack team of programmers and interface designers, responsible for the tasteful smooth, error-free browsing experience that is myspazz

----

paris - because we're talking about self-made millionaires, who've dragged themselves up by their bootstraps by dint of old-fashioned bloody hard graft

[Eponymous Cowherd]

Rock vs Hard Place

Just about says it all....

[Red Bren]

Like watching two school bullies fight

Two equally evil corporations, both with form for anti-competitive practices squaring up to each other at last. You don't really want either of them to win but you do hope they will give each other a good kicking.

[Dave Jones]

Today's slogan

Go! Home! Dirty! Digger!

[amanfromMars]

And the man who dies thus rich dies disgraced? ... Andrew Carnegie*

"paris - because we're talking about self-made millionaires, who've dragged themselves up by their bootstraps by dint of old-fashioned bloody hard graft" ....... Men, .... whenever they do it for all the right reasons. Aint that Right, Ladies?

*http://www.cmu.edu/news/blog/2007/Fall/the-man-who-dies-thus-rich-dies-disgraced.shtml

When you are super rich, imagine how many you could help in order not to die owning a cent. What a Wild Journey/Helter Skelter Ride that would be.

Although the Danger is that IT will make an Absolute Fortune. :-)

Oh Well, Two outta Three aint Bad.

And Paris because of Spring Time.

[Gav]

Better battered than charcoal

Yahoo says goodbye to the frying pan...

... and hello to the fire.

[Christopher E. Stith]

How many of my email accounts must MS have?

Okay, so I had an MSN email, then they bought Hotmail, which I'd had for years. Now they want to buy Yahoo. So MS feels a need to go around buying up other email and content providers for what purpose? Neither Yahoo nor Microsoft nor the two together are what Google and DoubleClick together are. Microsoft has news (MSNBC and MSN), they have email (MSN and Hotmail), they have search (MSN), they have ads (everywhere) and Office even shows ads.

The only bonuses I see for MS owning Yahoo is that they can foist Silverlight upon one of the biggest and most respected content networks in the world and they can write up some BS case study about how MS's IT department is more comfortable with Windows than BSD and Linux and they get their licenses of their own software for free, so Windows Server 2008 runs Yahoo cheaper for them than Yahoo's existing network. The parts about them not having to pay for the software and that their personnel are generally clueless about the competition will, of course, be left out.

So, as a loyal Yahoo user since 1995, I'd have to say that Microsoft would succeed in driving me closer to Google if the purchase goes through. I don't need a third search and news site and a third email address all served by MS.

As for Murdoch, if he gets MySpace and Yahoo together, maybe Myspace's awful user interface. Maybe they should negotiate getting special placement of the Fox News and other News Corp holdings stories on Yahoo's news section, too. I'd hate to see Yahoo become solely an outlet for News Corp, but listing them first wouldn't bother me a bit.

[Mike]

Why Not an ISP

I'm surprised it hasn't come up for Verizon or Comcast to buy Yahoo.

Surely an ISP would be able to slant the table a bit toward their own portal. They already try to make their home pages look like portals, and try to get their customers to use specific search engines by installing sofware during service installation. And if that portal is a credible GOOG competitor, its got a chance of sticking.

Its a good vertical play, I'd think. One buys lots of bandwidth, one provides lots of bandwidth. One gets paid for eyeballs, the other gets the eyeballs to pay.

[Paul]

News Corp even worse than Microsoft

Wow. I never thought I'd ever, EVER say this, but YAY! MICROSOFT!!

Seriously, I really don't like Microsoft, their business practices are reprehensible and I don't use their products except under duress, but they are by far the lesser of two evils, having "merely" contributed to the dumbing-down of computing, and acceptance of shoddy software by most computer users.

Whereas Murdoch's News Corp has actively contributed to the dumbing down of all society, the acceptance of shoddy journalism by nearly everyone, AND has had a nasty effect on open political discussion here in the US with it's "fair and balanced" ("fairly unbalanced", more like) Faux News channel and asshats like Limbaugh/Hannity etc. telling lies daily on the radio.

The world *really* doesn't need those fuckers getting any more influence than they already have, so for once, I'm rootin' for Redmond!

[jcipale]

In this case

I would rather the lesser evil empire (M$) win out. Of course, yahell will fit right in with murdick's anti-democracy stadning. I mean they DID censor Yahoo China...

[Anonymous Coward]

Rupe

Ol' Rupert isn't such a bad stick. He just likes to own loads of stuff. Oh and run the odd bit of crap news, etc. In the end he is just a man on a mission, a mission to lower the collective IQ. And that's gotta be a good thing, right?

Paris is already at an IQ level that Rupert wants for us all.