Oy.
My first reaction: "That's a lot to pay for flickr."
I'm surprised yet not surprised. Internally, a number of us had heard reasons from Steve Ballmer why a Yahoo! acquisition didn't make sense. One that sticks in my mind right now is how if we acquired Yahoo! - such a big company - we'd have to naturally have layoffs within Microsoft to accommodate it.
Maybe there are HR people wandering around Microsoft this morning asking, "What color slip did you say? Pink?"
Man, if I was in the Online Services Division I would be worried. Especially if Yahoo! did something my team did and did it well.
I guess you can track down the 10:00am meeting and see if you can get your question answered.
Forty-four point six billion US dollars. In long hand: $44,600,000,000 USD.
So, if your team is naturally at risk due to the acquisition I would start checking in on your local network and see what's going on elsewhere in Microsoft. If there's someone within Microsoft you've always wanted on your team that has some turbulence ahead due to the acquisition (yeah, I know, Ballmer's telling us "stay on target") check in with them and tell them the groovy things your group is doing.
If the buy goes through, it will be one huge turning point for Microsoft: I think we'll either turn it around brilliantly and our mega-investment will be worth it, or we'll be torn asunder and revert back to our core cash cows. It will be a story worth telling, one way or the other. In the meantime, that big huge money-chest is going to go empty, and that might bring a new sense of clarity to our operations.
Initial posts:
- Mr. Todd Bishop: Microsoft's big Yahoo bid Behind-the-scenes details - nice flow of updates over time and info on the Yahoo! board. Follow-up story by Mr. Bishop: Microsoft offers $45 billion to buy Yahoo
- Ms. Mary Jo Foley: Microsoft to become Micro-ad All about Microsoft ZDNet.com
(more later.)
No comments:
Post a Comment