I just finished reading the latest chapter in the Microsoft/Yahoo! takeover, and can't help but chuckle a bit. This is an ongoing battle I've been following for some unknown reason, but it remains to capture my interest. There is something about someone saying no to Microsoft that makes me smile.
I'm not a zealot of any kind, but I do harbor a little animosity towards a company that I deem to be generally evil in that they often use the cloak and dagger method to get what they want. In any business, I realize that if you want something, there is almost always a way to get it, but at some point there has to be a little conscience.
Watching Yahoo! tell Microsoft that their bid was too low, and then seeing Microsoft lower their bid further, and start with threats sends the message that Microsoft is losing this battle, and now they're trying something different to get their way. From what I have read, they're going to try to coax the Yahoo! Board of Directors into voting for the MS bid. If that doesn't work, I can imagine them trying a hostile takeover.
With any luck, Yahoo! won't accept their bid and will remain its own company. From that I can tell, MS has realized that they can't dominate Google in their market, so they're trying to do the next best thing, and that is to buy up the other competition and put the squeeze on Google. Obviously, I don't think this is going to be the death of Microsoft, but it might do well to make them compete in a fair market with someone who provides a vastly better, and more widely accepted product. Lets face it, Microsoft has historically simply bought their way into a market, and kept throwing money at it until they were the dominating force.