Posted on 05/07/2008 1:39:28 PM PDT by mnehring
SAN FRANCISCO -- Did Microsoft(MSFT - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr) start dating before or after it jilted Yahoo!(YHOO - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr) on Saturday?
The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that the Redmond, Wash. software giant has contacted Facebook to gauge the social-networking site's willingness to be acquired.
But discussions are not active, according to the report, begging the question of when the overture was made. Microsoft has already invested $240 million in the site, founded by Mark Zuckerberg, for a 1.6% stake, giving Facebook an estimated $15 billion valuation.
In spite of that tie-up, the Wall Street Journal's digital network reported Tuesday that Zuckerberg is considering appointing Ning and Netscape founder Marc Andreessen to the Facebook board, rather than a Microsoft ally.
In statements since Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer withdrew an offer of $33 a share for Yahoo!, the company has indicated it will boost its online presence through organic growth or other acquisitions. A Yahoo!-Microsoft deal would have merged the No. 2 and No. 3 companies in search-advertising market share.
A Facebook buy would beef up Microsoft's standing among online social networks. Microsoft's homegrown Windows Live Spaces site has 92 million registered users. In a presentation at Merrill Lynch Tuesday, Brian Hall, general manager of the Windows Live Business Group, said "Spaces doesn't have the level of engagement that the Facebooks and MySpaces of the world have," also referencing the social-networking site owned by News Corp.(NWS - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr). Google(GOOG - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr) has an arrangement with MySpace that places ads throughout the network.
The existing Facebook investment enables Microsoft to place audience-targeted, or contextual, ads on its network, Hall said.
Another rationale for acquiring Facebook would be to make it interoperable with Windows Outlook.
As Microsoft seeks to grow its online presence, one possible target occasionally mentioned as an alternative to Yahoo! is AOL, a division of Time-Warner(TWX - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr). But AOL has significant drawbacks for Microsoft. Although it has a big presence in some foreign markets, such as Russia, the portal lacks an advertising platform, already outsources ads through Google, and is not gaining market share, Hall said.
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To prepare for the merger, Microsoft is rewriting standard Windows error messages in teen dialect and chatspeak (e.g. “Like, OMG, the printer is, like, so not there”).
Just please don’t add more facebook apps.
I am sick of those things.
I got out of the MySpace/Facebook/Mybook/Yourbook crap a long time ago, but today's kids are OBLIVIOUS!
I talk to my 16 year old cousin, and it's like talking to an alien species of human. They are completely disconnected. I'm scared for the future.
Incidentally, MS is grasping for straws a lot lately. With FireFox making serious end roads on IE and Linux (specifically Ubuntu and Fedora) showing strong on some OS charts, I wonder if MS is getting long in the tooth for the younger generations?
And yes, Mac is making serious inroads. My own mother betrayed me recently and bought a MacBook. How could you mom?!
Rut-Roh.
Is MSFT facing some sort of Hard Times? Why is the company so desperately trying to get into other businesses? What is wrong with the core business? Is Vista turning out to be a colossal flop?
Not just yet, but it will once they stop supporting XP and force all of their corporate customers to upgrade to it.
You got it! I'm thinking of buying a laptop and replacing Vista on it, not with XP, not with Linux, but with.... OpenSolaris. Now, that would be an upgrade!
Microsoft was severely limited by the verdict handed down from Janet Reno’s “justice” department about 10 years ago that limited their ability to buy other companies, but that’s almost over now so they are testing the waters. Accumilations and mergers in the tech industry aren’t uncommon either, look at the list of IBM acquisistions the last few years:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_IBM_acquisitions_and_spinoffs
2005
Systems Research & Development (SRD)
Corio crio for $211 million
Ascential Software for approximately $1.1 billion in cash
Gluecode Software
Meiosys
PureEdge Solutions
GlobalValue
DWL
DataPower
Collation Inc
Network Solutions (India) Pvt Ltd
Bowstreet
Micromuse for $865 million
2006
CIMS Lab, Inc and Classic Blue.
Build Forge
Unicorn Solutions, Inc.
Rembo Technology, Geneva
Webify Solutions, Austin, Texas
MRO Software
FileNet Corporation for $1.6 Billion
Internet Security Systems for $1.3 Billion
Consul
2007
Vallent, Bellvue, WA
Watchfire, Inc, Waltham, MA
DataMirror Corporation, Toronto, Canada
WebDialogs, Inc, Billerica, MA
Princeton Softech, Princeton, NJ
NovusCG, Manassas, VA
Cognos Inc, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
Arsenal Digital Solutions, Cary, North Carolina.
Solid Information Technology of Cupertino, CA
2008
Net Integration Technologies
AptSoft Corporation
Telelogic
InfoDyne Corporation
Have you downloaded and installed the new gold release? I'm running the Project Indiana version in a VM and it's blazing fast, just wondering how the new version might perform.
No, I haven’t installed it yet.
What laptops have you found on the HCL? That’s why I’m using it in a VM on Vista myself, but it is blazing fast, probably the fastest VM I’ve ever seen bar none.
Wow, that’s quite a list for laptops. Have fun picking one out.
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