santa cruz wharf

05 November 2008

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot ~ anti trust ?

explain this to me...

Microsoft and Google are big successful companies.

AOL and Yahoo are big and formally successful companies.  However....now... they are in serious financial jeopardy.

The federal government won't allow the successful companies to merge with, or buyout (all or even part of) the not so successful companies. 

I get the anti-trust, global monopoly concerns.

However....is it better to just sit back and watch AOL and Yahoo fail?  Allow their stock to plummet until bankruptcy ?  Stand by while their employees lose their jobs?

'Cause then the business...and the revenue will just rollover to Google and Microsoft anyway. 

They will still be bigger and more powerful.  They will still control damn near 100% of the market.

But this way they get the last little bit for free.
 

10 comments:

Vinny "Bond" Marini said...

I can see both sides of this coin. I just hate seeing Microsoft and Google get any larger. Too bad there is not another player to come along or for yahoo and AOL to merge and combine their great features for a whole new product.

Jeff B said...

Apparently the powers at be, don't have any of their dollars invested in these failing companies. Now if Yahoo or AOL had a oil refinery or two in their portfolio, things might be different.

Linda said...

When I read this story yesterday I rather had the same thought you did - WTF?? It just doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me because Microsoft and Google will just get larger anyway when AOL and Yahoo fail. It certainly doesn't prevent anything now does it??

Sandee said...

Looks like it's been covered pretty well. Have a great day honey. Big hug. :)

Marilyn said...

I just keep looking at the issue and thinking there must be something I don't get...

Are they worried about setting bad precedents?

Nobody seems to care that I have only one energy company and only one telephone company to choose from and they treat customers like crap.

Schmoop said...

Ha. I think Jeff and Marilyn covered it well. Maybe I will fill the void by starting up Matthoo. Cheers Kat!!

The CEO said...

I'll be the killjoy and say that Microsoft had offered $34 a share for all of Yahoo, and Jerry Yang, CEO of Yahoo turned Microsoft down.

Google offered to do the search part of Yahoo for Yahoo for a fee, saving Yahoo a ton of money, according to Carl Icahn who is on the board at Yahoo. The govt. wanted a level of reporting from Google that was unconscionable, and hence Google and Yahoo backed out of the deal.

This prompted Jerry Yang to announce last week that now the sale of Yahoo to Microshaft made sense. Steve Ballmer rejected the offer.

I hope that helps. If you own Yahoo, you should fire Jerry Yang for having turned down Ballmer's initial $34 offer. Yahoo now trades around $12.

I, Like The View said...

whether we like it or not, understand or not, agree or not, it's part of the cycle that is the stock market

Romeo Morningwood said...

The ceo is right..now that the offer has been YANG'd off the table there should be a bonfire of the vanities held in Jerry's honor.
D'OH!

What's that line about Pride comes before a fall. Remember the movie Wall Street? Jerry should have listened to Gord Gekko's advice on not getting emotional about stock.

Desert Songbird said...

I'm a firm believer in market corrections. While I understand anti-monopoly provisions, I think that market demands, and the inevitable ebb and flow of them, make for a fairly even and stable market supply overall.