Does Microsoft YAHOO? … MicrosoftMakes $44.6B Bid for Yahoo … Google Nervous

Microsoft Corp. has made a $44.6B bid for slumping internet giant Yahoo. With Yahoo’s stock sliding over recent years, one wonders whether they have a choice on this unsolicited takeover offer. If this offer is approved the Justice Department would likely have to review a Microsoft-Yahoo merger.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Microsoft Corp. has pounced on slumping Internet icon Yahoo Inc. with an unsolicited takeover offer of $44.6 billion in its boldest bid yet to challenge Google Inc.’s dominance of the lucrative online search and advertising markets

The surprise offer of $31 per share, made late Thursday and announced Friday, seizes on Yahoo’s weakness while Microsoft tries to muscle up in a high-stakes battle with Google likely to define the technology landscape for years to come.

In a statement Friday, Yahoo said it will “carefully and promptly” study Microsoft’s bid. (Yahoo Biz)

As Microsoft looks to acquire rival Yahoo, Google stocks drop like bags of wet cement as they miss earnings estimates.

Feb. 1 (Bloomberg) — Google Inc., the most popular Web search engine, fell the most since it went public after fourth- quarter profit missed estimates, signaling investors have soured on one of the fastest-rising technology stocks of the decade.

Google lost $48.40, or 8.6 percent, to $515.90 at 4 p.m. New York time in Nasdaq Stock Market trading, the biggest drop since its August 2004 initial public offering. The decline, which dropped Google from the 20 biggest U.S. companies by market capitalization, came the same day Microsoft Corp. bid $44.6 billion for Yahoo! Inc., Google’s closest rival.