Microsoft Offers $44 Billion for Yahoo!

Wow! Maybe this is MSFT buying some internet respect? Would certainly help Yahoo!'s shares.

Thoughts, ideas?

I think it is a stupid move by Microsoft - Steve Ballmer is an idiot. They would be much better off doing what they do (software) and leaving Google be the kings of the internet. $44 billion is a ridiculous sum of money, even for something as huge as Yahoo. You might see Yahoo climb today but you sure will see MSFT slump (or at least dig further into their rut) if this goes through.

Steve Ballmer is a used car salesman. Once a used car salesman, always a used car salesman.

And ain't that the truth - MS has been on the down since he's had a say in the direction. Always wanting to sell a polished turd to the next idiot.

Gates I have respect for - he is an innovator if nothing else - Ballmer just wants in on all the IT action without actually having a clue about the various different aspects of being a software company versus being a hardware company (why the X-Box is still making losses) versus being an internet media company. You'd think he'd have picked some of the basics up by now, wouldn't you?

Yeah, he's not a geek and for all his time with Microsoft, I don't think he understands their core mission. He should have risen no higher than President of Marketing. I think things started going downhill when Paul Allen left. He was the only person with the power and the balls to tell Bill or Steve they were wrong. Gates gets a ton of credit and maybe rightfully so, but Allen and Gates kept each other in check, kept each other from being surrounded by yesmen. Their shouting matches are the stuff of legend. Gates is very driven and focused. Once Allen left there was no one who understood Gates or the business as well.

I agree...

what happened to the 'wonderful world of MSNBC, etc..?"

The old addage- if you can't invent something great...But It!"

44 billion $$? Sounds very desperate...

Was recently looking at upgrading an old program and was tickled to see the note "we will NOT upgrade our program(s) to Vista, we feel it is a waste of our time and it is a piece of crap".

Pretty much sums it up...

has ANYONE upgraded to Vista?

I wouldn't pay $44 for Yahoo. They just suck.

What's funny is that Microsoft says that they don't think that the web should be home to a monopoly. Sorry, but they have no fucking room to complain about monopolies.

Maybe so, but again, releasing a, "turdbomb," is lousy business practice and ignoring the fact that to be competitive, the product has to be as well. After ME you'd think they'd get it. They don't.

I bought an e-Machine in February of last year at "Wally-world" that had the Windows Vista Home Basic Edition of Vista on it. I absolutely hated it from the first time its stupid security software started interrupting the installation of some of my favorite software that I used with Windows XP Pro. When I tried to reformat the hard drive and install my copy of GENUINE Windows XP Pro, just after it got through loading the preliminary files, I got the dreaded "Blue Screen of Death" showing up on the monitor screen, saying that the computer had been shut down to prevent damage. It was something having to do with a "child application" (what the hell is a 'child application') that caused the BSoD error. So, I was STUCK with Vista, as much as I hated it. I eventually sold the machine to a friend of mine who put Vista Ultimate on it, and I guess he's been really happy with the computer since.

Microsoft had a good thing going when they had DOS. They screwed up when they made DOS un-separable from Windows.

That's why I build my own computers and only run Linux on them.
If it's not 100% open source, I won't have it.