Valleywag
Steve Ballmer must be itching for a fight. The culture he built at Microsoft prizes confrontation, and taking its bid for Yahoo directly to shareholders would fit his style. And he has hinted that, absent a response from Yahoo's board, he'd launch a proxy fight. But he'd be better off just walking away. Or seeming to. That's the technique Oracle CEO Larry Ellison used on BEA. He walked away when the smaller software company refused his advances. After leaving BEA to twist in the stock market's wind for a while, he returned and found it more pliant. Jerry Yang has frustrated Ballmer by playing hard to get. The move Ballmer might find unsatisfying, but most effective, would be to return the favor for a while.
Why Ballmer should walk away from Yahoo
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5:00 PM on Tue Apr 29 2008
By Owen Thomas
1,886 views
3 comments
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Someone else said it, but the problem isn't that he wants to walk away, but that it would make people question his management.
I've been for it because I think MS will choke on it, and I want them to choke on it, to death if possible. By my thinking, the merger is a guaranteed fail. Microsoft will kill Yahoo by accidentally rolling over them in bed. SYDS.
Thus I think Ballmer would be smart to back off. I'm dubious of the notion that he has to go through with it or people will question his management. That would be the worst reason in the world to keep going. He can just go hey, after we took a closer look we decided it was a turkey. Just like Larry did. Then as Owen suggests, swoop in after leaving them to twist for a few months.
Is it just me or does Ballmer get more insane-looking in every post? My bet: Yahoo finally surrenders when he causes all the board members' heads to explode telekinetically.
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