YAHOO FROM PAGE 27 pelled to look at the cloud,
in the enterprise, selling Gardner said: “This will Road to nowhere
search appliances to busi- come down to a competi- nesses and a collabora- tion of cost. Microsoft is Jan. 31 Yahoo shares trade at about $19 per share.
tion suite that it hosts on at a disadvantage because Feb. 1 Microsoft proposes Yahoo buyout for $31 per
its own servers as part of it’s transitioning from a share ($44.6 billion).
its cloud-based Internet previous high-margin, on- Microsoft announces that it may borrow money to services strategy. All told, premises software busi- Feb. 5 buy Yahoo.
these products are believed ness to a more low-margin, to constitute only 2 per- high-volume cloud-based Feb. 8 Yahoo stock prices hit $29.04 per share.
cent of the company’s rev- business.” Feb. 11 Yahoo’s board rejects Microsoft’s offer, saying
enue. What Yahoo brings to the bid is too low.
But as the computing the table as Microsoft landscape shifts increas- attempts to dig into the Feb. 14 Reports claim that Yahoo has held talks with News Corp. about a possible merger, focusing on
ingly toward cloud com- cloud is a large audience in News Corp.’s MySpace.
puting, Gardner said, established Western mar-Microsoft’s traditional kets, according to Ovum April 5 Microsoft imposes three-week deadline on
client/server and pack- analyst David Mitchell. Yahoo. In a letter to Yahoo’s board, Microsoft states,
aged software model will “[Yahoo’s audience] “If we have not concluded an agreement within the
be threatened. Businesses would have provided a next three weeks, we will be compelled to take our
are already looking to use valuable additional cus- case directly to your shareholders, including the
applications that Google tomer base and distribu- initiation of a proxy contest to elect an alternative
hosts in its own data cen- tion potential for Micro- slate of directors for the Yahoo board.”
ters. Microsoft wants to soft cloud-based offerings April 24 Microsoft CFO Chris Liddell issues ultimatum
get to the same place and that are emerging and that about three-week deadline.
needs Yahoo—or a com- will continue to emerge at The three-week deadline passes without a Yahoo pany like it—to help do an ever-increasing rate— April 26 response.
it. with Yahoo engineering
“There’s a great deal of capabilities helping the May 3 Microsoft withdraws its bid for Yahoo. In a letter to
consensus that the older acceleration of cloud ser- Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer
approach of a client/ vices coming to market,” wrote, “After giving this week’s conversations further
server-based architecture Mitchell said. “Microsoft thought, it is clear to me that it is not sensible for
is cost-inefficient,” Gard- needs to move on quickly Microsoft to take our offer directly to your sharehold-
ers. This approach would necessarily involve a pro-
ner said, adding that the rather than entering any
tracted proxy contest and eventually an exchange offer.
cost of maintaining a PC in period of mourning over Our discussions with you have led us to conclude that,
many enterprises is more what might have been.” in the interim, you would take steps that would make
than $1,000 a month. Yahoo undesirable as an acquisition for Microsoft.” Moreover, Microsoft’s Back to the
laborious Windows Vista starting line Yang calls the Microsoft proposal “a distraction” that Yahoo can put behind it.
operating system rollout microsoft’s decision
hasn’t assuaged any of to withdraw its offer for The Monday after Microsoft’s weekend with- these pains, meaning busi- Yahoo probably saved May 5 drawal, Yahoo’s stock price drops about 15 percent.
nesses will look at alterna- both companies a lot of
tives such as cloud-based grief, but the months-long From Jakarta, Microsoft’s Chief Research and computing or SAAS (soft- soap opera also weakened May 8 Strategy Officer Craig Mundie says the company
ware as a service). both companies to some has no plans at this time to make another play for
In effect, if a company degree and returned them Yahoo.
like Google lets customers to where they were before
use applications for $12 it all began—trying to fig- July 3 Yahoo holds its annual shareholder meeting.
per user per month, more ure out how to carve out Source: e WEEK reporting
businesses will be com- some space in the online
