Microsoft Threatens Yahoo: Won’t Work April 7, 2008

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Microsoft really wants Yahoo. In fact , it wants it so badly that if the Yahoo board doesn’t respond more favourably to the initial offer of $45 billion, it’s going to reduce the offer and go straight to the shareholders.

This is the bullish Steve Ballmer we all know and…. well, know, really. The Yahoo board has already rejected the Microsoft offer as too low but Steve isn’t listening. In a letter sent this Saturday to the board, Ballmer wrote:

“If we have not concluded an agreement within the next three weeks, we will be compelled to take our case directly to your shareholders, including the initiation of a proxy contest to elect an alternative slate of directors for the Yahoo! board. The substantial premium reflected in our initial proposal anticipated a friendly transaction with you. If we are forced to take an offer directly to your shareholders, that action will have an undesirable impact on the value of your company from our perspective which will be reflected in the terms of our proposal.”

Ooo, that’s fighting talk. Yahoo’s board are expected to respond today and I expect that response to be along the lines of John Cleese’s lone soldier in a besieged castle from Monty Python & The Holy Grail:

“You don't frighten us, Microsoft pig-dogs! Go and boil your bottoms, sons of a silly person. I blow my nose at you…..I don't want to talk to you no more, you empty headed animal food trough whopper! I fart in your general direction! Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries.”

Or something like that.

See Ballmer in action below and tell me if that man really needs any more caffeine. -Martin Lynch

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