With Microsoft walking away from the Yahoo deal, there’s been a lot of talk about what it’s next best option would be. Going after AOL is an obvious choice. It has the ad inventory (aka pageviews) Microsoft needs, has its own collection of growing online advertising businesses, and has a very willing seller in parent Time Warner. The Times of London is reporting that Microsoft and AOL are in “preliminary talks” about an acquisition. And AOL isn’t exactly hitting on all cylinders right now, so it could be a much cheaper, cleaner purchase.
Of course, Microsoft is still talking to everybody at this point, except maybe Yahoo. Whether it truly intends to set its sights on AOL is unclear because it needs to talk to AOL at the very least as a strategic ploy to try to thwart any possible deal between Yahoo and AOL (which has always been a possibility in the background). But at least Wall Street doesn’t seem to think that a deal is imminent. Yahoo’s shares are up 4 percent from yesterday to $25 a share right now, while Time Warner’s shares are pretty much flat at $16 after rising about 6 percent last week. Maybe Yahoo’s talks with Google are going better than Microsoft’s talks with AOL.
(Disclosure: As a former employee of Time Warner, I own some shares in the company)
After what happened to Yahoo! on Monday. I’ sure AOL will be more than careful to make the decision.
I think this is the right approach. Given Time Warners keen interest in selling, I think they will be able to pick it up on the cheap. I’m also sure employees would be more willing to be gobbled up, helping morale and making the integration smoother.
Don’t judge a stock price as an indication of whether “talks are going well”. It’s really just speculation that a deal will get done between YHOO and MSFT (or someone else). Since there’s lots of press about an apparant willingness of MSFT to pull the trigger at $33/34, that gives a number for the markets to rally towards.
I still dont think Microsoft will go for AOL. There are too many conflicting assets between Microsoft and AOL.
That would be a much better fit (for users). Leave Yahoo! alone!!!
The TWIT Podcast touched on this also. Must be the next logical step for MSFT. I for one would get a lesser known company with less baggage like ask.com…
I wouldn’t put it past MS, as doing this is a serious way to kick Jerry in the crotch!
Nice way to keep oneself busy
And yes, #2 is correct. Just watching CNBC for an hour this morning made it quite plain that the Street still thinks it’s gonna get done at $34, and that there’s a good chance it’ll happen when Yahoo’s Board is ousted at this summer’s meeting.
The major shareholders are openly talking about canning Jerry & Co. and talking to MS themselves.
AOL. Oh my.
Don’t even joke about that.
AOL is a nightmare.
I agree with Hank Williams.
MSFT should buy Adobe. It would be a genius stroke.
http://whydoese...e-going-to.html
Chuck
Disclosure: As a regular reader of Techcrunch, I own some shares of TC
.
This would be an interesting if not more valuable purchase. With AOL essentially being a mini-clone of Yahoo in respect to portal properties I think it might work well. AOL’s portal offerings are stronger then MSN’s.
Not to mention the combination of the interenet’s two largest IM platforms and email services would be huge. There is plenty there to be combined. not quite as nice a fit as Yahoo would have been but perhaps the setups could be more easily integrated.
On the flip side who is to say this is not a ploy by MS to lure the Yahoo shareholders into coming back at a missed opportunity. At the way the stock is trading now a comeback deal of even $30-$33 a share must sound rather good after what they just lost.
i like Microsoft’s new focus…
I only hope these companies are not rules by people reading Techcrunch. Sell! Buy! Yahoo is doomed! Microsoft is doomed! Google is good! Google is evil! Chill out, people..
I think the AOL fit would be better for Microsoft culture wise and user base wise, however, Microsoft should also take a look at Ask.com and the About Network. There are millions of unique hits per month and MS could walk away with the Ask.com network at a discount in comparison to Yahoo.
Why would anyone want AOL, unless they stripped out the good parts like Adv Com, Tacoda, Quigo and dumped AOL itself. Falco and Grant are clueless. Every other portal is putting up numbers except AOL.
actually AOL has some cool stuff going on these days. AOL radio ROCKS!!! AIM is also cool… they just bought bebo…
I would like to see Yahoo stay independent because I think there is still life in that company. However I think AOL’s time has passed and can benefit greatly from an MS merger. AOL is still making more money than Facebook and MS can benefit from the loyal AOL users and their simpler use of the internet, contrary to the Yahoo users that would completely abandon MS and actively thwart the merger.
@camdef:
“I only hope these companies are not rules by people reading Techcrunch. Sell! Buy! Yahoo is doomed! Microsoft is doomed! Google is good! Google is evil! Chill out, people..”
With 1,000,000 RSS subscribers alone, if we all held the same opinion about something (almost ANYTHING), then it would be scary…. really scary….
There are plenty of ‘tards, plenty of really smart people, and plenty in between who read this. Trying to put a lid on it is futile.
We might never know how Yahoo infrastructure would have transformed… but moving over AOL would be a huge back office infrastructure story for Microsoft. AOL is a hyooge Linux shop. Even with all their layoffs they still have over a dozen Linux oriented positions open.
what about google’s 5% stake, search deal? what would happen to that? i doubt if there is an easy out there
@14 Jon: “Microsoft should also take a look at Ask.com and the About Network.”
Ask.com is owned by IAC which owns many properties including TicketMaster.com, Match.com, etc.
About.com is owned by the New York Times.
Microsoft going after a cheaper, less confident company? That pretty much describes Yahoo! now that the stock dipped.
Erick
I don’t think that would be a good idea but then again Microsoft WILL spend some money on something , might be AOL who knows. ….
I don’t get where the value of AOL is…are the types of people who still use their services and access their portal (i.e. my mother and countless thousands of other technophobes still paying $24 a month because they think they will lose their @aol e-mail address if they cancel) all that valuable outside of their raw numbers? I would doubt that.
The only portion of AOL’s business that seems like it would have some value–however small–would be the Weblogs portion of the business (Engadget, Joystiq, etc.).
It’s also interesting that Microsoft will gladly drop a lotta billions on buying up another company instead of investing a fraction of that to acquire the right talent to build a solution that will work.
Forget AOL. Microsoft should buy Time Warner and start running it right.
Sorry… but … what is AOL ?
AOL = EOL (End of life)
http://vidsonly.blogspot.com/
Stop spreading rumours!
Just because Microsoft went after Yahoo doesn’t mean it will go after every other company
AOL is a sleeper. The remaining hard stock is an asset in the millions and some back end assets that Time Warner has kept under wraps would sweeten the deal…and they will use them.
The former bad blood between AOL and Microsoft makes adds another reason Gates might like to put this trophy in his basket. I say time will tell (no pun intended).
thnks