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Valleywag
Microsoft's rank-and-file employees don't want to merge the company with Yahoo. During today's companywide town hall meeting, one of them asked CEO Steve Ballmer to explain the attraction. The helpful transcriptionists at Silicon Alley Insider typed up Ballmer's answer. We've reduced it to an SMS-friendly version, below.
The future of the way people consume information is going to change in the next 10 years dramatically. We are committed to leading. We are not today leading. We've got very talented bright people. But there are some structural things in the industry that make it hard to make rapid progress. We need to gain scale. Yahoo accelerates scale. Gets us more advertisers, gets us search. Yahoo's not a strategy. It's a part of a strategy. I know exactly what I think Yahoo is worth and I won't go a dime above. We've got three big options: the friendly deal, an unfriendly deal, [or] simply to walk away. If Yahoo doesn't happen there's a number of other things we'll look at.
Comments
How many search technology and web advertising companies has microsoft bought in the last 10 years? And they still suck at search... even with millions of PC's pointing at msn and live search by default.
Give it up, Ballmer. get in amway sales or something. You suck.
"Any attack made by the Rebels against this station would be a useless gesture, no matter what technical data they have obtained. This station is now the ultimate power in the universe. I suggest we use it."
@BartKela: Isn't it annoying that the real world version of an evil overlord wears plaid leisure suits and drives a beige Lincoln? Can we squeeze Ballmer into a plastic helmet or something?
Naaah, I sorta like Ballmer's unabashed Midwestern reverse snobbism.
He's a bull in a china shop.
I'm thinking that secretly Bill Gates is horribly distressed by Ballmer, but is too freakin' rich and too morbidly entertained to do anything to get him tossed.
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