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Wall Street analysts — those lordly thinkers who would run companies if they weren't so busy pontificating about them — say that Jerry Yang should accept Microsoft's offer and that regulators will rubber-stamp the merger in due course. Of course, they also thought Panama was going to be a game-changer and that Sue Decker was a strong leader. A rundown of their newly revised statements of the obvious:

  • JP Morgan's Imran Khan praises the the deal's cost saving.
  • Lehman Brothers' Doug Anmuth said the new company will hold a sudden lead over AOL and Google in display advertising, email and instant messaging.
  • Mark May, from Needham & Co., says some Yahoo investors would prefer to be patient with new CEO and cofounder Jerry Yang, but he suspects impatient investors will have their way. This, he says, despite the fact that Microsoft's offer is only 15 percent above Yahoo's 52-week average.