This morning, according to Microsoft, Pieter Knook, the company's wireless chief, "retired" after 17 years with the company. "Retiring" sounds so much better than "leaving for a better gig," doesn't it? Knook is actually joining Vodafone to head a new Internet division. He starts March 10. Pieter, next time, why not tell people you're taking a vacation? That would be easier.
Click to viewA tipster is friends with Bill Gates's Facebook profile — the one Gates claims to have stopped using. The skinny on the Microsoft cofounder: "The friends list is short (110 friends) and yes, there are a bunch of teenagers on it BUT all key internal people that I know work with him closely are friends with that profile." On the list:
Microsoft's marketing exec Michael Sievert just lost his job. The Wall Street Journal reported the news today, but the Windows product marketing VP has probably seen the writing on the wall since February 4. That's when Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer told analysts Microsoft needs "to be doing more to highlight Windows." It's no wonder. At the end of January, Gartner predicted that by 2011 Apple will have doubled its U.S. and Western Europe computer market share.
Microsoft will promote Andrew Lees to senior vice president and task him with gaining a stronger foothold for Microsoft in the consumer market for mobile devices. That means taking on Apple's iPhone. According to the WSJ, Lees replaces Pieter Knook, who shuffles into retirement on today's news. Perhaps this is because Knook last year allowed Steve Ballmer to say "There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance."
In a new letter to shareholders, Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang explains why he and the board rejected Microsoft's acquisition bid. It's a rehash of the internal memos sent to employees and then prophylactically leaked to the SEC these past few weeks. In the letter, Yang promises that Yahoo will grow its online advertising market share to 20 percent "over the next several years." So far, Yahoo shareholders remain unconvinced. The company's share price remains essentially pegged to Microsoft's bid. Here's the whole thing.
Click to viewSo Microsoft buying Yahoo for $44.6 billion is a big deal. No, it's a massive deal. Before Microsoft's share price dropped, it was to be the second-largest tech deal made in the past decade after AOL/Time Warner. Even more impressive? Like the AOL deal, this is a merger you can explain to your mom. Most people have never heard of the big tech companies. Hell, I've never heard of some of them. SDL? JDS Uniphase? Veritas? Aspect Development? I have no idea what they do. But you don't need to be a household name to be worth billions. Here are the 15 biggest tech deals since 1998.
The public story is that Microsoft chairman Bill Gates has quit Facebook "after getting more than 8,000 friend requests a day, and [spotting] weird fan sites about him." We don't doubt it, but a tipster tells us that BillG has a secret profile only visible from within Facebook's Microsoft network. Surely some Microsoftie Valleywag readers are friends with him. Do tell: Are there frenzied poking wars in Redmond's C-suite? Message us.
Michigan lawyer David Fink has filed a lawsuit against Yahoo's board of directors. His client, the Wayne County Employee's Retirement System, owns 13,600 shares of Yahoo, and wants Yahoo's board to consider Microsoft's $31-a-share offer. Before you laugh at the scrappy pension fund's move, know this: It has sued public companies before.
Brin, Page and Schmidt have cut and run on Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang. Word is Google execs visited with Yang and the Yahoo board last week and encouraged them to say no to Microsoft's offer. As incentive to do so, Google is said to have offered to take over Yahoo search and immediately boost the floundering company's cash flow. On Monday, Yang officially rejected Microsoft's offer. But now that Yang and the board face a proxy fight with Microsoft, these Google executives are suddenly less interested in bailing Yahoo out, the WSJ reports. Sources tell the paper that the Googlers' enthusiam waned as antitrust worries waxed. But we wonder if all Google wanted in the first place was to keep Microsoft and Yahoo from doing anything quickly.
Yesterday, Yahoo's board officially rejected Microsoft's unsolicited — now hostile — takeover bid, and I had a grand time coming up with headline after headline, but sadly we could only run one of them. Here's our chance to be creative! Come up with a great headline and post it in the comments below. If you've never commented before, sign-up instructions are after the jump. Here are some of our favorites.
Microsoft's half-stock, half-cash $44.6 billion bid for Yahoo has confused many. The price, people tell you, varies with the fluctuation of Microsoft's stock. Not exactly. Only half of it. The way Microsoft is making the offer, shareholders can get either stock or cash. Once the stock or cash portion is gone, the remaining shareholders are stuck with what's left. While the value of the stock has varied, the $22.3 billion cash portion hasn't; and That introduces an interesting incentive which works to Yahoo's disadvantage: Shareholders can opt for cash now, or risk being stuck with less-valuable shares later, if the bid goes through. Those who doubt Yahoo's present management get the higher reward. Quite a twist.
Rupert Murdoch loves to make trouble for other moguls. Could he stop Microsoft's bid for Yahoo? Wall Street analysts have been asking Murdoch if he would buy Yahoo outright. Never mind that the News Corp. chief doesn't have the cash to outbid Microsoft. Such a straightforward deal would be far too boring for Murdoch to contemplate. Instead, here's a scenario bruited about by Silicon Alley Insider.
Yahoo employees are being targeted by Valley recruiters as Yahoo's best and brightest ponder a future with Microsoft. "Ninety percent of our clients are asking for Yahoo talent, particularly in the last two weeks," said Bruce Brown, managing partner at executive search firm Daversa Partners. The sharks have been circling for weeks after talk of layoffs began, but the purple blood in the water from the Microsoft bid has whipped headhunters into a frenzy. Yahoo executives are interested in talking to recruiters. Even Valleywag is getting headhunted. Our tips line received the following email from a gentlemen trying to find a few good Yahoos. Anyone want to take him up on it?
At Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's bidding, proxy solicitation firm Innisfree yesterday began calling Yahoo shareholders to ready them for a fight to replace Yahoo's board, the New York Post reports. Over the weekend, Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang and the Yahoo board said it would take at least $40 a share for Microsoft to buy the company. That's a price one source close to Microsoft called "absurdly high." Ballmer has until March 14 to nominate new directors to Yahoo's board who agree.
The elaborate Kabuki routine being acted out in Microsoft and Yahoo's boardrooms serves one purpose: To cloud the notion that the takeover is about money. It is, of course. Watercooler talk at Yahoo's Sunnyvale HQ is that management is pushing for $36 a share — conveniently more than halfway between Microsoft's initial $31 bid and Yahoo's $40 counter. But Jerry Yang seems opposed to a sale at any price. And he has a secret plan to reboot Yahoo.
Jerry Yang, normally a shy type, has suffered a bout of logorrhea, spewing forth "confidential" memos which are promptly leaked filed with the SEC. Those who work at Yahoo are surely too busy saving the company to read ALL the boss's excess verbiage. For those busy souls, here are the highlights of Yang's oeuvre, with a special bonus — capitalization.
Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang made all the right noises in leaked memo number three this morning. But shareholders don't really believe Yahoo will remain independent, Bits points out. If they did, Yahoo's share price would already be back near its four-year low, as it was before Microsoft made its offer. Instead, Yahoo shares closed at $29.87, about a dollar more than where Microsoft's current offer stands, at $28.91 per share.
