By Ina Fried, 20 November 2008 08:42
NEWS
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer threw water on the notion that the software maker will return with a new bid for all of Yahoo!.
"We are done with all acquisition discussions with Yahoo!," Ballmer said, adding that he has said this many times but that some people remain "confused".
"We did our best," he said. "We've moved on."
His comments came at the company's annual shareholders meeting Wednesday in Washington. Ballmer, whose address was offered live via webcast, made no reference to Yahoo! in his prepared remarks but it was the first shareholder question.
Speculation was rekindled this week after Yahoo! announced that it is searching for a new CEO to replace Jerry Yang, who will step down once the new executive is hired.
Yahoo!'s shares plummeted Wednesday in response to Ballmer's comments. The reaction comes just a day after Yahoo!'s shares jumped as high as 16 per cent in intraday trading, following the news about Yang.
While Ballmer rejected the notion that Microsoft would return with a new offer to buy Yahoo!, he reiterated that the idea of a search partnership remains "an interesting possibility".
"There's no active discussion on that front but we'd be very open to it," Ballmer said.
Dawn Kawamoto of CNET News contributed to this report.
Comments
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1. Gareth Evans
If Ballmer was interested then the LAST thing he'd do would be to announce it. As can be seen by the share jump whem the Yang resignation was announced so everyone assumed that the blockage to a MS take over was being removed.
It would seem a shrewd move for MS to let Yahoo! slip a little more and shed more surplus staff and then take them over.
Makes financial sense to me.