Microsoft after Yahoo... Again!

[PEO]

Looks like Microsoft are having another go but this time (from what I understand) only buy so much of the company...

BBC NEWS | Business | Microsoft mulls fresh Yahoo deal

http://business.theage.com.au/web-ad...0519-2g2m.html

[FN-GM]

Weren’t they after VMware recently as well? Looks like they have some money burning a hole in there pocket…

[torledo]

Weren’t they after VMware recently as well? Looks like they have some money burning a hole in there pocket…

This time last year emc's IPO offering of 10% of the company valued vmware as a whole 15 times more than what EMC paid for it in 2004.!!!

Now that's what i call a smart takeover, buying a company with potential for growth or buying companies that add value to that company...cisco and emc are past masters on this attitude of we don't have the technology or our own products aren't good enough let's buy the talent. Infact it's something microsoft do aswell in the case of softgrid for instance...

Buying a smaller stake in yahoo is certainly more sensible than a takeover, what would be even better would be to strike up strategic partnerships if they haven't already done so in search and advertising.

As for vmware, i don't know what % of the company EMC still retain as they also sold 2.5% to intel a while back, but one analyst i read believes EMC should be a minority stakeholder in the company because they are addicted to VMware's revenues. fancy that.

Microsoft could purchase a small stake in VMware, but i don't think anyone, least of all EMC, would like or let them gain control. I don't know how much control of vmware would cost but it's got to be upwards of 8 bilion dollars. That's a pretty major hole.