socialmedian: Is Microsoft About to Buy Facebook for $50 Billion?

Clips

Is Microsoft About to Buy Facebook for $50 Billion? By judithgermain

User-submitted headlines for this story

Source: Mixx: Google

Mar 27, 2009

Summary

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer paid “lip service” to a Yahoo! deal and cleverly set the stage for acquiring Facebook, during his keynote at the Digital Hollywood Media Summit.

Yahoo!’s stock price shot up on the news of his comments, but I think the press and the markets are missing the big picture: Microsoft’s is using the “potential Yahoo! deal” as a red herring with investors. Ballmer is using Yahoo! to convince the market that Microsoft needs to buy Facebook to compete with Google, and to set a price floor of 50 billion for the acquisition. Microsoft may be facing a situation where Facebook usage grows so fast that its costs skyrocket, creating a cash crunch, and in this difficult fundraising environment it’s best bet is just to buy Facebook.

I reached this conclusion after analyzing Ballmer’comments and talking to Microsoft execs at the media summit. Here’s my story from the conference:

Microsoft would spend 47 billion dollars for Yahoo!’s users, not Yahoo! technology. “Small companies you buy for technology, big companies you buy for the customer base.”

...Read the full article

Comments (0)

Add Your Comment