Yahoo will most likely fight the hostile bid from our friends at MSFT. In my opinion, the best way to gain back some investor and leadership confidence is to make some drastic changes. Hire a new CEO, not a chicken without a head. Yang is not good for Yahoo right now. He should be like the other co-founder, a figurehead. He's made unwise purchases of tech companies which are bleeding Yahoo in overhead. The Blue Lithium purchase, though over priced, may pay off in the coming years. The Right Media purchase was a disaster. Just look at how much it costs them to keep it going. They need to pull all Yahoo advertiser sales under one housing. Close offices which are not producing, and cut the staff count even more. If MSFT gets control of Yahoo, both Blue Lithium and Right Media will take second and third seat to their own services. They already have AQuantive. They have little use for either service. If you look at any of the other big acquisitions MSFT has done, you can see the fate of these two units. MSFT has a tendency of keeping costs inline and cutting the fat. What do you think will happen to all excess businesses of Yahoo? MSFT really only wants the Yahoo brand. Everything else, is well, of little worth to them. Yahoo will not go down without a fight, but they need to change the way they look at things.
Microsoft have offered a 60% premium over the market price for Yahoo shares. Yahoo is making slow progress in a market that's growing at rapid speed. The cost of fighting the takeover will further impinge on Yahoo's under-resourced management. I'd take the money.
Google's CEO already stated they'd help Yahoo fight the MSFT hostile bid. Its to both companies advantage to get MSFT out of the picture. They are only under-resourced because they make questionable (at best) purchases. Not many are giving Yahoo applause for last year's purchases. To make less than 10% net profit on seven billion dollars is really bad. They really need better leadership. That is at the core of their problems. Say what you want about Google and MSFT. They know how to run a company. These guys at Yahoo are impulse buyers. Wasted a billion dollars on Right Media and Blue Lithium. When they could have spent the same amount for Facebook. With Facebook bringing in 150 million a year, it would not be much to gain back their investment.
Who said that Eric Schmidt? I'd definitely love to see the news. If I was one of the shareholders of Yahoo! - I'd be happy to dispose them for handsome profit!