Who Will Microsoft Buy Now With the $50 Billion Change Left? AOL? Facebook?
AllThingsDigital -- WSJ byDespite the fact that Microsoft has withdrawn its offer to buy Yahoo, the M&A machinery on all sides is still in full gear, and expect tons of activity in the next couple of months. The $50 billion or so that Microsoft was willing to spend is the money that’s still around, at least on paper. So who will Microsoft buy to make that leap it so hoped for?
Microsoft now has $50 billion burning a hole in its pocket…
from VentureBeat by
Okay, Microsoft’s attempt to buy Yahoo fell apart — so now what? Well, in his letter to Microsoft employees, chief executive Steve Ballmer says that Microsoft will be just fine going forward without Yahoo. As a company, that may be true. But what about its long term goal of taking the lead online?
If current trends hold, Microsoft is not going to be overtaken by Google in the online realm. It needs to either step up its game or purchase some other big name Internet companies. Luckily, it just saved itself about $50 billion today.
So the question now is, who will Microsoft buy? Already, quite a few people are pointing to AOL. It’s a fairly obvious choice. Time Warner badly wants to spin them off, and they have held talk with none other than Yahoo about a potential merger. While AOL has long been looked down upon in the Web 2.0 world, there are some signs that it could be turning itself around in a meaningful way.
Beyond AOL (and of course Yahoo and Google), Ballmer himself has noted there aren’t too many really large Internet companies out there. Social networks Facebook and MySpace both certainly qualify, but MySpace still has an ad deal with Google and Microsoft already owns a piece of its main rival, Facebook. Could Microsoft try to buy a larger portion, and thus more influence, in Facbeook?
Here’s another idea on a smaller scale: Digg. Microsoft has an advertising deal with the social voting news site already, and can certainly afford the rumored $200-300 million Digg is looking for to sell. As to how that would go over with the Digg community…well, lets just say those Flickr protests(Yahoo owns Flickr and its users were unhappy over the proposed takeover) would probably look pretty tame when compared to what we’d see on Digg.
So here another idea: Twitter. The online micro messaging service could likely be had for what Microsoft would consider pocket change — even the highest valuations are “only” $150 million. There would be a lot of questions as to what Microsoft would actually do with Twitter (as well as what anyone actually does with Twitter), but it would certainly be a nice, buzz-worthy purchase in the short term.
What about another buzzed about service, FriendFeed? Given that most of FriendFeed’s core team comes from Google (with more coming every day), it seems unlikely they’d want to sell to Microsoft.
Who else? Maybe Meebo, the IM service recently pegged at $250 million? The $560 million valued Ning? We’re really just throwing names out there now based on high valuations. It’s simply hard to say what Microsoft will do at this point, but you can bet it will do something — soon.
Who Will Microsoft Buy Now With the $50 Billion Change Left? AOL? Facebook?
paidContent.org byDespite the fact that Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) has withdrawn its offer to buy Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO), the M&A machinery on all sides is still in full gear, and expect tons of activity in the next couple of months. The $50 billion or so that Microsoft was willing to spend is the money that's still around, at least on paper. So who will Microsoft buy to make that leap it so hoped for? Steve Ballmer hinted the readiness in his letter to Jerry Yang: "We will move forward and will continue to innovate and grow our business at Microsoft with the talented team we have in place andpotentially through strategic transactions with other business partners."
Some possible combinations:
-- One would have to believe that Facebook will be back in play. Microsoft is already the advertising provider for the social networking service, and also owns a small part in it. This would give it a strong toe-hold in the social media space and help it experiment more with new advertising models, among other things.
-- Then, to block and isolate Yahoo further, AOL's (NYSE: TWX) buyout would be a possibility. Time Warner is certainly interested in spinning it out, and is still speaking to Yahoo on a combination. Google (NSDQ: GOOG) is a 5 percent shareholder of AOL, so things might have to worked around that.
-- Certainly, if Diller really wants to get rid of IAC's (NSDQ: IACI) disparate companies in this spinoff, then Microsoft could be a ready buyer.
-- Then other smaller possibility include CNET (NSDQ: CNET), though hard to see synergies between the two companies.
-- Further down the money chain would be tons of other companies like Twitter, Digg, Meebo and any other $50 million to $500 million company.
Ed: Microsoft needs to focus on its enterprise roots. Moving toward consumer services via Yahoo made no sense. It's a mismatch with their brand image.
Ning, Saleforce.com, or a mash-up of enterprise-focused services would better fit Microsoft's long term image.
If Mr. Ballmer insists on a consumer play, it would be better to purchase an emerging brand and assign all the consumer facing services to the new division.
Microsoft walked away from a Yahoo deal still looking for an answer to its fundamental problem: its time-tested recipe for success isn’t working against Google. As Yahoo investors wait to see how far their shares will fall after Microsoft withdrew its offer, a Google partnership is being considered as a lifeline. “Press reports that major shareholders would have been wiling to take $35 are probably not far off the mark,” said Bill Miller, Yahoo’s second-largest shareholder.A Step Back for Microsoft
After Deal Dies, Yahoo Weighs Its Next Move
A Yahoo Shareholder on What Might Have Been
"
Facebook
LinkedIn
about adEcon
MarSP
rich media
top
blog
newspaper
social network
No comments:
Post a Comment
Comments accepted immediately, but moderated.