Microsoft Yahoo Talks Get Interesting (just like we told you they would)
Last week we reported that it was likely that crazy-like-a-fox Carl Icahn was setting his sights on forcing Yahoo to accept a merger offer from Microsoft -- never mind that said offer had been taken off the table and definitely never mind that Microsoft had been making googly-eyes (pun intended) at AOL. So that happened: Icahn has his seats on the board and is pushing for a deal.
Pushing around Microsoft ain't like pushing around Motorola, though. For one thing, unlike Motorola, their executives use email. Witness this one from platforms and services president Kevin Johnson, who write essentially puts the kaibosh on the idea that they're in talks now -- but he doesn't rule them out in the future. It will have to wait until after Wednesday's “big announcement,” purported to relate to Live Search getting better (yet again). (Hey -- at least he admitted the branding sucks.)
The amount of noise Microsoft has been making lately regarding online services is reaching jet-engine-proportions, more on that in a future post.
Meanwhile, the latest Microsoft plan is apparently to just partner with Yahoo or just buy their search marketing division. This plan is starting to get Icahn angry. You don't want to see Icahn when he's angry.
