Cloud Computing

Well, it looks like Microsoft's attempt at a hostile takeover of Yahoo! is over. And really, thank God for that one: Yahoo! is the tech equivalent of a bad loan, something that would have come back to bite Microsoft sooner rather than later. So while it's unclear what the future holds--I'm looking for other Microsoft investments and purchases in the Facebook/MySpace area--I thought it might be interesting to look back at my coverage of this event in chronological order. In compiling these excerpts, I'm struck by how much press this generated over the past few months. And I'm so happy to put this behind us. Microsoft Offers $44.6 Billion for Yahoo February 1, 2008 Microsoft this week made an unsolicited $44.6 billion offer to purchase ailing Internet services company Yahoo, surprising investors and tech industry onlookers. But the bigger surprise was that Microsoft also confirmed long-standing rumors that it had been trying to strike a deal with Yahoo for quite some time: In a letter to Yahoo's board of directors, which Microsoft opened to the public, CEO Steve Ballmer noted that his company had been courting a Yahoo merger or acquisition since at least 2006. "We have great respect for Yahoo, and together we can offer an increasingly exciting set of solutions for consumers, publishers and advertisers while becoming better positioned to compete in the online services market," Ballmer said. "We believe our combination will deliver superior value to our respective shareholders and better choice and innovation to our customers and industry partners." In his letter to Yahoo, Ballmer spelled out the ways in which he felt the two company's Internet properties were compatible, noting that there were "significant benefits of scale" that would help the combined companies more effectively compete with market leader Google. (Interestingly, Ballmer never mentions Google by name in this letter, however.) Ballmer says that Microsoft would offer "significant ret

byPaul Thurrott