Whilst Microsoft is in the middle of what The Inquirer calls a "hostile takeover" of Yahoo, Yahoo decided to buy a company of their own. Maven Networks recently accepted a $160 million offer to be bought out by Yahoo. It is very likely that this move was to increase the value of Yahoo. It should be noted that Yahoo was in talks with Maven long before the whole Microsoft-buying-Yahoo debacle. As part of the acquisition, Yahoo gets some fine deals with CBS Sports, Gannett, News Corp, Hearst and Sony Pictures. Yahoo will not lay off any of Maven's 70 employees, despite laying off nearly 1,000 of their own. Another large benefit to Yahoo acquiring Maven will be the sudden boost of places where Yahoo can shove their advertisements, further increasing revenue. Whether or not this is enough to fend off the "hostile takeover", we'll have to wait and see.

Microsoft has officially responded to Yahoo!'s rejection of its proposed $44.6 billion takeover bid with the following statement:

It is unfortunate that Yahoo! has not embraced our full and fair proposal to combine our companies. Based on conversations with stakeholders of both companies, we are confident that moving forward promptly to consummate a transaction is in the best interests of all parties.

We are offering shareholders superior value and the opportunity to participate in the upside of the combined company. The combination also offers an increasingly exciting set of solutions for consumers, publishers and advertisers while becoming better positioned to compete in the online services market.

A Microsoft-Yahoo! combination will create a more effective company that would provide greater value and service to our customers. Furthermore, the combination will create a more competitive marketplace by establishing a compelling number two competitor for Internet search and online advertising.

The Yahoo! response does not change our belief in the strategic and financial merits of our proposal. As we have said previously, Microsoft reserves the right to pursue all necessary steps to ensure that Yahoo!'s shareholders are provided with the opportunity to realize the value inherent in our proposal.

It's becoming very apparent now that Yahoo has issued a press release refusing Microsoft's rather high bid for the company that there's more to the idea of a Yahoo acquisition than just a shift in management. The shareholders for Yahoo are simply livid over the fact that Yahoo is planning on going forward without Microsoft. Shareholders are already pretty angry over the fact that Yahoo has lost 40% stock value since last year. Microsoft, at this point, can do two things. They can up the bid, and risk making their own shareholders unsure. Or, they can leave Yahoo to suffer, and "spear-head an attack to oust Yahoo's board". Yahoo, however, is not without it's own options. Yahoo is expected to release a statement regarding exactly why they rejected Microsoft's offer. While some would claim the refusal was due to a personal spat between a few board members, Yahoo's investment banker confirms that Microsoft really didn't offer enough money. If Yahoo had accepted a $31-per-share buyout, Yahoo could very well have infuriated shareholders even more, and been accused of malfeasance.

While Yahoo "formal rejected" a complete buy-out by Microsoft, it would seem that they're still up for going at the great world of the internet with a partner. Since they can still be "swallowed" my Microsoft, Yahoo is looking into ways to increase their monetary value. While talks with Google and Disney are certainly under consideration, Yahoo executives currently think that merging with AOL would really bring the most benefit. And so, Yahoo executives are working on re-opening negotiations with AOL regarding a merger. Yahoo couldn't have picked a better time, considering that Time Warner recently began considering letting go of AOL.

Yahoo! Inc., a leading global Internet company, today said the Yahoo! Board of Directors has carefully reviewed Microsoft's unsolicited proposal with Yahoo!'s management team and financial and legal advisors and has unanimously concluded that the proposal is not in the best interests of Yahoo! and our stockholders.

Yahoo's board of directors plans to reject Microsoft's acquisition offer, according to the Wall Street Journal. The board believes that the current offer "massively undervalues" the company. Quoting sources "familiar with the situation", the WSJ said that board would not be accepting an offer below 40 USD per share, which would bring the purchase price closer to 57 billion USD, and would require Microsoft to account for certain risks, if regulators do not approve the deal. Yahoo's stock closed Friday trading at 29.20 USD. If accurate, the board apparently is generally willing to agree to the sale of the company. The two companies are likely to be heading into a gambling phase to find out if they can agree on a price. It is unclear at this time whether Microsoft is willing to increase its offer to the level of Yahoo's expectations. When Microsoft announced its intention to take over Yahoo, CEO Steve Ballmer said that Microsoft had been in "on and off" acquisition talks with Yahoo for about 18 months. He said that he "thought long and hard about" purchasing Yahoo and believes in a Yahoo that is integrated into Microsoft "more than ever." He considered the 44.6 billion USD as an offer that Yahoo should "seriously think about".

For a while, you could only get your legal music from three main music distributors: Napster, Real Rhapsody, URGE, and Yahoo. However, there have been a lot of changes. With restriction-free music gaining momentum, with distributors like Wal-Mart providing cheaper music, and distributors like Amazon simply offering more music, business is awful hard to come by for any of those distributors. Yahoo, which at one point offered more than two million songs, has been forced to shut down the Unlimited music service. Yahoo has officially sold the Unlimited music service to Real Rhapsody, and current subscribers of Yahoo will be given a migration notice very soon, if they haven't been already. Yahoo will still be in the music business, though, and is considering offering a very limited catalog of subsidized free music, much like competitor Spiral Frog.

Here's your update to the whole Microsoft-Yahoo situation: Microsoft may actually not have enough money on them to buy Yahoo outright. Or, even if they do, they somehow see a need to borrow a fair size of money to do this. The reason Microsoft sees the need to borrow money is the current state of negotiations. Yahoo, if they agree to be acquired, wants half the funds as a stock buy-out and half as cash. While Microsoft has $21 billion to spend on such a venture, Yahoo requires about $23 billion, and Microsoft doesn't feel like depleting the whole bank over a business deal.

However, while Microsoft works out loan terms, Microsoft may not need the money after all. Yahoo is seriously considering turning down the offer. Even if they accept any offer to be bought out, Yahoo has stated that they're more likely to accept an offer from Google...

We'll keep you posted as this whole debacle unfolds.

As most of you know, Yahoo is seriously considering letting Microsoft buy them. However, we cannot forget that more than just Microsoft would benefit if Yahoo was to consider letting someone buy them. Google would also be pretty pleased if they could get Yahoo in their pocket, much like YouTube. However, instead of place a bid in, Google sent some nasty comments Microsoft's way.

Could Microsoft now attempt to exert the same sort of inappropriate and illegal influence over the Internet that it did with the PC? While the Internet rewards competitive innovation, Microsoft has frequently sought to establish proprietary monopolies-and then leverage its dominance into new, adjacent markets.

Please follow the source article for the full statement Google put out regarding this possible merger/purchase.

Microsoft Corp. today announced that it has made a proposal to the Yahoo! Inc. Board of Directors to acquire all the outstanding shares of Yahoo! common stock for per share consideration of $31 representing a total equity value of approximately $44.6 billion. Microsoft's proposal would allow the Yahoo! shareholders to elect to receive cash or a fixed number of shares of Microsoft common stock, with the total consideration payable to Yahoo! shareholders consisting of one-half cash and one-half Microsoft common stock. The offer represents a 62 percent premium above the closing price of Yahoo! common stock on Jan. 31, 2008.

Technology giants Microsoft, Google and Yahoo! have agree to pay $31.5 million to settle claims that they promoted illegal gambling. However, none of the companies contested or admitted that they were guilty of such an offence, which accused them of running adverts for illegal gambling websites between 1997 and June this year. The $31.5m breaks down into $21m from Microsoft, $3m from Google and $7.5m from Yahoo!. Some of the money from the three companies will be used towards funding for the International Center for Missing and Exploited Children, public service advertising and adverts warning young people about illegal gambling. Google gave the following announcement:

While we did not admit any wrongdoing, the Department of Justice has advised that online gambling is illegal in the United States and ads to promote it are improper. Google voluntarily discontinued running such ads, which were a very small part of our AdWords business, in April 2004.

Soon Adobe's popular document format will include functionality to support advertising, thanks to a new partnership with Yahoo. The two companies are framing the service as a way to allow publishers to offer their content on an ad-supported basis. This could also accelerate the adoption of PDF as a way to deliver paper content to subscribers in electronic form. Ads within the PDFs would appear in a side panel and would only be viewable by those using Adobe's readers, as to "not disrupt the viewing experience." Ads would be dynamically matched to the content within the PDF, Adobe said. "By partnering with Yahoo on this innovative advertising service, we are creating opportunities for publishers to build new businesses around unique content that previously was just given away or not available to a mass online audience," Adobe corporate development chief Rob Tarkoff said. The offering would be in beta for several months, and would be open initially only to US English-language publishers.

Yahoo! has launched today public beta of a new social network service for students and alumni. Named Kickstart the new initiative is a professional network with a distinct purpose: to connect college students, recent grads, professionals and alumni to discover internships and jobs, or get career advice and mentorship. Kickstart allows you to create a professional profile, browse company profiles and network with your peers, professors, alumni and potential employers. The best way to understand what Kickstart is to have Yahoo! registration, click here and see for yourself. You can also read the top 10 reasons to use KickStart.

Yahoo Inc confirmed on Friday that Chief Marketing Officer Cammie Dunaway, a member of the Internet media company's executive team, was leaving the company, effective November 2. As part of a series of restructuring moves over the past year, nearly half of the 15-member top executive team at Yahoo have either taken new roles or left the company. Co-founder Jerry Yang took over as chief executive of Yahoo in June. Dunaway was in charge of global brand marketing efforts for the company. Among the campaigns she organized was Yahoo's 2004 "Life Engine" corporate advertising campaign. She was named as one of the 100 Top Marketers by U.S. trade magazine Advertising Age. "Cammie has strengthened the marketing function and built a strong bench of creative talent," Yahoo said in a statement. "We wish her all the best in her future endeavors and thank her for her leadership." Yahoo did not give further details on her departure.

Yahoo! today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Zimbra, Inc. (www.zimbra.com), a leader in next generation e-mail and collaboration software. Under the terms of the agreement, Yahoo! will acquire Zimbra for approximately $350 million.

After losing out to Google in a bidding war to buy online advertising company DoubleClick, Microsoft could be about to acquire Yahoo!, a site best known for its search capabilities. The deal is being reported to be worth as much as $50 billion, and would allow Microsoft a stronger market position to compete with Google in the growing business of online searching. Earlier this week Yahoo! announced that it would be buying a further 80% share in advertising firm Right Media for a sum of $680 million, leaving it in full control of the company, a move which probably increased Microsoft's interest in such a deal. Yahoo!'s shares rose to $32.25 from $28.18 after news of this merger, which could change the face of online searching over the coming years - and may have a significant impact on free online email services considering that Microsoft is in control of MSN Hotmail.

As Yahoo! Mail approaches its 10-year anniversary, the company has announced that it will begin providing Yahoo! Mail users with unlimited email storage starting in May 2007. When Yahoo! Mail launched 10 years ago, users got a 4MB of storage for their entire mailbox. Today, the company is aiming for unlimited mailboxes. Yahoo! Mail is currently the world's largest provider of email accounts. Yahoo! Mail has over 250 million global users.

A former model who now lives in Ohio recently signed up for a Yahoo Email account. This doesn't sound like anything special, however, it became very special the moment Yahoo sent the lady her first Email. She got an email full of tips on how to use the Yahoo account...with her picture on top. She is now suing Yahoo for $20 million USD. She is demanding $10 million for lost profits, and another $10 million to cover attorney fees and the like. The official complaint claims "that the image has been sent to millions of users around the world without Stovall's authorization, violating her right to privacy and right to publicity--that is, to control the commercial use of her identity".