RSSMicrosoft CFO to Yahoo: This weekend is deadline for buyout bid
By Jacqueline Emigh | Published April 24, 2008, 6:48 PM
If Microsoft doesn't "make progress" in its Yahoo buyout bid by this weekend, the Redmond company will move on to options that include taking the offer to Yahoo shareholders and dropping the acquisition offer entirely, said Chris Liddell, senior VP and CFO at Microsoft, in a conference call late Thursday.
"[But] Microsoft is focused on the online ad market," due to industry predictions of major growth in this space over the next few years, Liddell told financial analysts and journalists during Microsoft's third quarter financial call.
Accordingly, Microsoft has developed a back-up ad strategy that will revolve around Windows Live and its other existing properties if the Yahoo deal stays stymied, Lidell said during the call, in which Microsoft announced net income of $4.4 billion -- down 11 percent from the same quarter last year -- on sales that rose only slightly this past quarter to $14.5 billion.
Microsoft did post a profit for the quarter, however, due mainly to positive sales results for its Xbox games console and business server software. The big drops came in sales for Windows and Office, but those are largely attributable to a deferral of Vista and Office 2007 revenue until the first quarter of 2007, even though sales began in late 2006.
Taking the deferral out of the equation, the client division that sells Vista still saw sales fall 2 percent from the previous year. Despite a growth in advertising sales, Microsoft's Web division posted a loss of $228 million, a sign that the company needs to make major changes, and may look elsewhere if shunned by Yahoo.
In a Q&A session at the close of today's call, Liddell acknowledged that his company might also consider a buyout of another company if the Yahoo merger doesn't happen.
"We've been clear that speed is of the essence in the [Yahoo] deal," according to Liddell.
But Yahoo seems to have an "unrealistic" concept of its own long-term value, the Microsoft CFO said, pointing to Yahoo's own recently released financial results.
"Yahoo [continued] to lose search share [and] profit," according to Liddell. "But that said, we're here today to discuss our earnings."
Beyond announcing its quarterly earnings today, Microsoft projected revenues of between $66.9 billion and $68 billion for fiscal 2009, foreseeing continued demand in the server software markets and big gains on both the entertainment and advertising sides.
Microsoft's projected revenues for 2009 were higher than Wall Street expections, as were the company's projected earnings of $2.13 to $2.19 per share for the fiscal year.
Liddell said that the projections did not include the impact of any possible acquisition of Yahoo.
Ok, weekend is over. What happens next??? (unbearable suspense...)
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|Let's see.
MS: We want to buy you.
Yahoo: Get lost (OK, I edited this to keep it clean!)
MS: We want to buy you.
Yahoo: Get lost.
MS: We want to buy you.
Yahoo: Get lost.
MS: Give us your answer by this weekend.
Yahoo: .......
Hmmmmm. Let me guess............
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|I am sick of hearing about this.
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|I agree. It's just fuel for the fanboys to fight about, and what better site for it than this one.
Anyway this is my last post here. Betanews has turned into nothing but stupid daily flame wars. I don't know what's worse, the fanboys like pitdingo that do nothing but type M$ and bash them constantly, the Microsoft fanboys that bash Sony at every chance, or the just plain arrogant smarta**es like PC_Fool that do nothing but go around being a jerk to everyone.
I'm going to Fileflash from now on. I'll try to avoid the door on the way out. :D
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|You should see cnet coverage. salivation.
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|Yahoo, Yahoo, Yahoo!,
The sooner me budd's Willie & Stevie can grab this heap of s*** company the bedder, 'n for all you naysayers. Let's look at the facts MSFT can do for software what I in my most glorious munificence have done with the price of gas!
And, let us not forget AH! what's the name of their boss Wang or sumpin' souds like a doe eyed coon.
Pass me my Weatherby! Please, d***!
Goddam, I'm relying on MSFT's capital to bail us out of the R word.
Humblest, regards to all, and may HE be with you in your future intro inspections.
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|Ms is ranked #1 in gross profit at 28% better than Apple. When fortune 1000 results with best company (profit wise and best company to work for figured in) MS is ranked #1. BN, as usual, doesn't do complete research or any research. I doubt if the people if the writers at BN even know how to read a spreadsheet or understand econ 101. They only understand presenting the masses (narrowly defined) how to slant their stories and put a positive spin in title and content of their pieces on companies they like and a negative spin in both title and content on ones they don't like.
But this is in America the birthplace of "Yellow" journalism that BN has turned into a fine art form that would make Hearst proud. The hack writers of BN should be proud. Hearst is smiling down on you as you "innovate" yellow journalism.
As far as Yahoo, I have stated that I think this is a bad deal and MS should just walk away and pour that 40 billion into something more worthwhile than Yahoo.
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http://finance.google.co...nt=ob&q=NASDAQ:MSFT
Fortune is ranking large corporate companies to work for. There are tens of thousands of smaller companies that are probably a better bet for working and offer real opportunity to someone working as a small shareholder.
Yeah MSFT has massive revenue. Their product is dirt cheap to make and sell. However, if I were a long term MS employee, I'd be thinking, "man, all that money they make, I helped make it, and I see very little of it." Same goes with any public company...
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|"However, if I were a long term MS employee, I'd be thinking, "man, all that money they make, I helped make it, and I see very little of it." Same goes with any public company..."
That's not logical in any way of thinking. I mean, if you are a deadbeat and can't find a job then maybe you'd say that. The only people i've ever heard say I should be making more money are immigrants and people who are not educated and have to just get some job, any job (i'm not comparing both btw, immigrants because they tend to be paid less because of their foreign status, and uneducated meaning, 'officially'....high school/college drop out - that is NOT to say that I mean uneducated in the sense that they're not SMART - as these are 2 different concepts entirely).
But if you're educated and skilled enough to work at a company like MS, I'd wager that if you felt you were underpaid, could not get more money and so decided to leave, you'd be scooped up by some other company very quickly. But, we're both making assumptions.
Companies like MS and Google seem to have very happy employees. There's very low turnover, period.
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|What makes working in the US particularly attractive is that if you are good and deliver it will be recognized (by companies that succeed long term). For example many European companies still have an old-school attitude where you have to do your time before moving on, regardless of performance. This way they lose the best talent as soon as it can find other opportunities. The down side is that the US culture is better at BS than delivering something to conclusion so it takes extra diligence to pick your resouces.
Anyway - the point is that if a US company is considering you a valuable asset (you are special) they make your stay worthwhile. Of course by definition being special excludes the average worker.
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|"Yeah MSFT has massive revenue. Their product is dirt cheap to make and sell. However, if I were a long term MS employee, I'd be thinking, "man, all that money they make, I helped make it, and I see very little of it." Same goes with any public company..."
What about the companies that failed and went belly up? Did the employees say, "man, all the hard work I put into driving this company to the ground, I should give up my wage/salary..."
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|"What makes working in the US particularly attractive is that if you are good and deliver it will be recognized (by companies that succeed long term)."
Have you actually lived here and worked in a large U.S. company? Have you seen Officespace?
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|Microsoft is slooooooowly decaying...dying...withering...fading...THANK YOU VISTA AND APPLE FOR MAKING THIS DREAM A REALITY!
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|Microsoft has BILLIONS of dollars in reserve and cash on hand. As for dying, even if their profit went to zero, they could survive for YEARS without a problem. They would use that money to buy some other company that does make money. Their cash cows office and Windows might be in jeapordy eventually with linux and things like google apps and openoffice gaining more and more attention and acceptance. But for right now, nothing more then a nat that is slightly annoying.
But in the end, windows will have a VERY slow death indeed. All depends on uptake of Linux and if Apple will continue to gain market share.
Microsoft is continuing to make more money, increase revenue and grow. The train has to slow down, stop then reverse before anything will happen. This won't be any time soon, that is for sure.
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|You have some good points that I agree with but I think Microsoft's OS monopoly will die sooner rather than later. :)
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|Wrong... MS owns some much of the OS market it would be almost impossible to get people used to another OS. Remember, its about what people know.
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|If they bought Yahoo, they would be in debt, they can't afford to buy all of it outright.
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|What a short sighted thought process.
For example, since iphone's introduction, it has surpassed linux as an OS online.
Google pwns the net, as far as anyone can tell.
A monopoly now is no guarantee of a monopoly in the future. A monopoly on the desktop might not even be important 10 years from now, why would we all be chained to a device on a desk?
Ford motor company had a monopoly for 10 years, they slowly lost it (without gov't regulation) because they didn't innovate as their competitors did. By the time they caught on, they were already #2. They never regained that lead.
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|and Yet Ford posted a profit to everyone's surprise but comparing MS to Ford is like comparing a tree to a leaf. The ability of MS to turn on a dime despite their size is what makes me think they will survived the longest of the companies mentioned.
Also, one more little piece of info- the organization heading the push for an under $100 computer so that all kids around the world can have one has announced that they are switching to XP instead of open source.
Will there come a day when the companies mentioned will falter? Yes and the cause will no doubt come from Asia which just happens to use Windows software..
I am not advocating one OS over another- that is a preference each person makes and each OS has good and bad points. But make no mistake that 1) MS has made a lot of their everyday employees rich and continues to reward them 2) MS spends more on R&D than most of the other techs combined (3% of total revenue) and 3) never count MS out even with every country looking to make a buck off them, they are still
a potent force. The challenge for MS is when Gates leaves to take full control of his and his and his wife's foundation. Then we will see if MS can use the departure as a good or bad thing.
Added note- Stock price is not a good indicator of value because of something called stock splits which Apple and Google have not done but which MS has done a ton of in their existence. You could add the total Aggregate value of almost all the tech and this would still not equal the total Aggregate value of MS.
Everyone have a nice day and happy surfing :)
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|MSFT made PCs mainstream for the average user (and continues doing so). It is not elitist Apple or tech savy Linux. Regardless of anything else wrong with MSFT this is why comments like yours mark you as an idiot.
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|New petition, lets keep the CAPS lock off and use the s*** key to emphasize single words only...
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|Yup. Hooray for mediocre MS that does nothing exceptionally well...Except marketing.
Yup, and tech savvy Linux - so innovative they still lack an effective desktop and applications (applications? We don't need no stinkin' applications) - and elitist Apple who has perhaps the most elegant consumer oriented OS with features that go far beyond Linux in both robustness, elegance, compatibility and POSIX compliance - and that does matter considering they are both playing in the UNIX arena and offer a Windows compatible client and server admin suite.
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|Ballmer: (inthe words of another famous individual) "What? Me worry?"
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|Couldn't have put it any better myself.
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|OK, WILL DO.
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|Awwww, poor M$ fanboy, did daddy hurt your feelings? (^__^)
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|Wrong...M$ still owns the majority of the OS market share but it is also gradually losing that same market share to Mac OS X which is on track by 2010 to have a double digit market share. Microsoft will always continue as a company but as a company that supplies an OS that is relevant in the future is not likely.
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|Yahoo shrugs. I think yahoo execs would rather fail as a company than see a buyout.
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|That's why MSFT are going for a proxy and kick those execs (some of whom are too childish to even comply with adult grammar rules) out.
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|Everyone stands to make money anyhow.
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|Well, I hope MS wises up and just walks away with their 44 billion and puts it ti better use. Yahoo isn't worth it and it will be a drag on MS's Financials for a long time to come. So, I hope the execs at Yahoo continue to thumb their nose and I hope MS says fine.. see you later and takes their money with them.
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|Maybe, maybe not. At that level of investment they must have done analysis and objectives I we have no idea about.
I do like the idea of diversity for the sake of healthy competition, which also benefits businesses such as mine. And I am specifically worried about the future of Yahoo Mail, which is the best in class for personal web mail :)
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