Oh, I dunno, maybe we might buy Yahoo after all, or not
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, after he and his underlings spent months saying they'd moved on from the notion of buying Yahoo, says that a deal still makes "economic sense." Yahoo's stock leapt 17 percent, though it wasn't clear from his remarks, made at a Gartner conference in Florida, whether he was talking about a search partnership or a full acquisition. Either way, Ballmer: Make up your frickin' mind. There are 3,500 Yahoos who are about to lose their jobs, not to mention that cushy post-Microsoft severance package Jerry Yang ginned up. Oh, wait, there's more!Microsoft spokesperson Frank Shaw just emailed me, asking me to attribute this to a Microsoft spokesperson: "Our position hasn’t changed. Microsoft has no interest in acquiring Yahoo; there are no discussions between the companies." Says a Microsoft spokesperson. So Microsoft's CEO thinks a Yahoo deal is a good idea — he's just not interested in it. There you have it: Microsoft is officially uninterested in good ideas. We always suspected as much, but it's nice to get it on the record.