Software giant Microsoft has dropped its three-month-old bid to buy internet firm Yahoo because the two sides cannot agree on an acceptable sale price.

Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer formally withdrew the offer in a letter to Yahoo chief executive Jerry Yang.

Mr Ballmer said Microsoft had raised its original offer from $44.6bn to $47.5bn (£24.1bn) - $33 per share.

But he added that Yahoo had insisted on at least $53bn, or $37 a share - more than Microsoft was prepared to pay.

The software giant had wanted to do a deal to be able to compete with Google, which dominates the lucrative market for internet advertising.

This market was worth $40bn in 2007 and is predicted to double to $80bn by 2010.

'Distraction'

In his letter to Mr Yang, which has been posted on the Microsoft website, Mr Ballmer said: "We continue to believe that our proposed acquisition made sense for Microsoft, Yahoo and the market as a whole.

"Despite our best efforts, including raising our bid by roughly $5bn, Yahoo has not moved toward accepting our offer.

"After careful consideration, we believe the economics demanded by Yahoo do not make sense for us, and it is in the best interests of Microsoft stockholders, employees and other stakeholders to withdraw our proposal."

Yahoo maintained that Microsoft had offered too little to buy the company.
In a statement issued after Microsoft's withdrawal, Yahoo chairman Roy Bostock dismissed the unsolicited bid as a "distraction".
Microsoft's shares closed on Friday virtually unchanged at $29.24. Yahoo's shares were $1.85 higher at $28.67 amid expectations of a higher Microsoft offer.

Source:- BBC NEWS | Business | Microsoft walks away from Yahoo

I personally believe that Microsoft should be barred from consuming anymore computer/software companies. They already own enough ground in the IT business as it is.

I've never been quite sure what to make of the deal, as somebody that publishes online ads I would welcome so competition to Google, but buying Yahoo who's search share is as near to nothing as makes no odds and their advertising delivery system which has been in beta (should be alpha) for the last few years is just crap just doesn't add up to me.

Just to give everybody an idea of how spent a force the yahoo search engine is and how much Google own the online search/advertising market, here are the search engine referral stats for the last 30 days for this site.

Google 1,117,302 visitors sent
Yahoo 12,544
Live 8,984
MSN 5,455
AOL 4,529

TBH even if M$ bought Yahoo and AOL, they still would not make any significant impact on the market.

Originally Posted by z3r010

I've never been quite sure what to make of the deal, as somebody that publishes online ads I would welcome so competition to Google, but buying Yahoo who's search share is as near to nothing as makes no odds and their advertising delivery system which has been in beta (should be alpha) for the last few years is just crap just doesn't add up to me.

Just to give everybody an idea of how spent a force the yahoo search engine is and how much Google own the online search/advertising market, here are the search engine referral stats for the last 30 days for this site.

Google 1,117,302 visitors sent
Yahoo 12,544
Live 8,984
MSN 5,455
AOL 4,529

TBH even if M$ bought Yahoo and AOL, they still would not make any significant impact on the market.

Dang z3r010, those are some big numbers. When I'm out in about in the world, people ask other people questions and the answer is quickly becoming, "google it".

Google even has a SMS (text) inquiry from your cell phone. Even if you are not "web enabled" you can get the top result from google by texting, without the quotes: "web yourquestionhere" to google (or 466453). You can even get the current weather conditions from google via text on your phone, without the quotes by texting "w' plus your city/state or US zipcode, for example "w 10101" sent to 466453 would send you back a text message with the current conditions for that zip code, plus a 72 hour forecast. The google web site has some more voodoo you can do via text message and interact with their search engine.

It's no wonder that google is the top place to do searches. I know when I have a question, I google it. I'll sometimes visit the other search engines, but they rarely have anything new that google hasn't already indexed.

Dang, should have bought google stock when it first came out. I could be retired by now

Originally Posted by dmex

Originally Posted by softwareguy256

MS needs to focus on quality control. Their new softwares are buggy as hell. MS was good in the 90's but I don't know what these new employees are doing...

Try Linux then compare the differences in quality control, I think there doing a very good job compared to the competition. It takes a little while to get used to how Vista works but once you get the hang of it its defiantly way better using than anything else around.

dmex

That's the truth. I'm even getting annoyed with XP these days, and that's where I learned how to make a computer dance on command.

And don't get me starting on Mac OSes.

I don't want to seem like an apologist for Microsoft, but they seem to me to attract a huge amount of flack, both deserved and undeserved, but in response to the point that MS should not be allowed to consume any more of the industry, I want to know how come everyone stands by with vacant smiles on their faces as Google eats the world whole. Also how come $teve Job$ always gets away with his spray-on sincerity and phoney 'down-with-the-kids'-ness

Originally Posted by AvatarOfTheShip

I don't want to seem like an apologist for Microsoft, but they seem to me to attract a huge amount of flack, both deserved and undeserved, but in response to the point that MS should not be allowed to consume any more of the industry, I want to know how come everyone stands by with vacant smiles on their faces as Google eats the world whole. Also how come $teve Job$ always gets away with his spray-on sincerity and phoney 'down-with-the-kids'-ness

You've got a point. If anyone ever had a computer monopoly, it was Apple in the 80s and early 90s. Worse than that, there was no such thing as third-party equipment or software.