Is my blog violated?

I search through Google and found this site from sharedcopy. Well well since it is promoting my site I shouldn’t be whining about it.

Sudden rush of spam

I just realized that I have to clear at least 100 spammy comments everyday. It doesn’t mean my site is popular. The sad thing is that it at least register 30% from my woeful traffic. Sigh~

It’s been getting real irritating with the number of spam comments just going up everyday, which spam bots are on the rise too. I think someone should do something about it and ban that person from Internet altogether.

Just a thought if spam bot is so easy to code. Maybe I can create one after I finish my paper.

Apple may move to protect Yahoo against Microsoft

Now even Steve Jobs is into the battle for Yahoo. Really an unexpected change of events. While Microsoft is willing to go into debt to finance for the acquisition for Yahoo ($44B), this means how valuable they view Yahoo as the platform to delivering applications.

Think about it, Yahoo messenging and Msn messenging is the two highest traffic communication tool while Yahoo mail and Hotmail is also two of the most popular email service around, so practically Microsoft will have almost full control of the email and messenging market. Isn’t that scary?

In the meantime, lets just wait for more news to happen. Maybe Mittal (steel magnate) or some tycoon in the middle east will make the offer. This will really be Interesting.

Another question that is bothering me is what has Apple get to gain from this. Are they just to help? In my opinion this is quite unlikely cos there’s history of Apple collaborating with other companies just to turn their backs on them.

Apple may move to protect Yahoo against Microsoft: “Apple, News Corp., others named as potential suitors for Yahoo as Microsoft makes its bid

Apple and News Corp. may make rival bids for Yahoo to see off Microsoft’s hostile takeover bid for the internet company.

”

(Via Macworld UK.)

Google taking action to stop Microsoft from acquiring Yahoo

Really interesting indeed to see this happening just a few days after the initial announcement. While this is quite expected from Google. Much of the discussion with my friends actually come to the conclusion that even the merger won’t help.

While Google can’t acquire Yahoo in the first place, the very next thing they can do is to disrupt their plan. This is really a brilliant idea but will it be an antidote to the current situation?

Microsoft with it’s tons of cash after acquiring some search market can do a lot of things to disrupt Google. Microsoft outearned Google even now. Imagine Bill Gates just announce their goal of the year is to formulate a plan and to throw all their profits into it for the next few years just to kill off Google.

Maybe this is what Google is afraid of…

Extracted from NYT
By ANDREW ROSS SORKIN and MIGUEL HELFT
Published: February 4, 2008

Standing between a marriage of Microsoft and Yahoo may be the technology behemoth that has continually outsmarted them: Google.

In an unusually aggressive effort to prevent Microsoft from moving forward with its $44.6 billion hostile bid for Yahoo, Google emerged over the weekend with plans to play the role of spoiler.

Publicly, Google came out against the deal, contending in a statement that the pairing, proposed by Microsoft on Friday in the form of a hostile offer, would pose threats to competition that need to be examined by policy makers around the world.

Privately, Google, seeing the potential deal as a direct attack, went much further. Its chief executive, Eric E. Schmidt, placed a call to Yahoo’s chief, Jerry Yang, offering the company’s help in fending off Microsoft, possibly in the form of a partnership between the companies, people briefed on the call said.

Google’s lobbyists in Washington have also begun plotting how it might present a case against the transaction to lawmakers, people briefed on the company’s plans said. Google could benefit by simply prolonging a regulatory review until after the next president takes office.

In addition, several Google executives made “back-channel” calls over the weekend to allies at companies like Time Warner, which owns AOL, to inquire whether they planned to pursue a rival offer and how they could assist, these people said. Google owns 5 percent of AOL.

Despite Google’s efforts and the work of Yahoo’s own bankers over the weekend to garner interest in a bid to rival Microsoft’s, one did not seem likely, at least at this early stage.

For example, a spokesman for the News Corporation said Sunday night that it was not preparing a bid, and other frequently named prospective suitors like Time Warner, AT&T and Comcast have not begun work on offers, people close to them said. They suggested that they did not want to enter a bidding war with Microsoft, which could easily top their offers.

A spokesman for Time Warner declined to comment, as did a spokesman for Comcast. A representative for AT&T could not be reached.

In the meantime, people close to Yahoo said that the company received a flurry of inquires over the weekend from potential suitors. Some people inside Yahoo have even speculated about the prospect of breaking up the company. That could mean selling or outsourcing its search-related business to Google and spinning off or selling its operations that product original content, these people said.

“Everyone is considering all kinds of options and deal on search is one of them,” a person familiar with the situation said.

One person involved in Yahoo’s deliberations suggested that “the sum of the parts are worth more than the whole,” arguing that its various pieces like Yahoo Finance, for example, could be sold to a company like the News Corporation for a huge premium while Yahoo Sports could be sold to a company like ESPN, a unit of the Walt Disney Company.

Executives at rival companies were less optimistic about such a breakup strategy. “No one can get to a $44 billion price,” one executive at a major media company said, “even if you split it into a dozen pieces.”

In making its bid for Yahoo, Microsoft is betting that past antitrust rulings against it for abusing its monopoly power in personal computer software will not restrain its hand in an Internet deal.

In the United States, a federal district court in Washington ruled in 2001 that Microsoft had repeatedly violated the law by stifling the threat to its monopoly position posed by Netscape, which popularized the Web browser. The suit, brought during the Clinton administration, was settled by the Bush administration. But as a result of a consent decree extending through 2009, a federal court and a three-member team of technical experts monitors Microsoft’s behavior.

In 2006, for example, after Google complained to the Justice Department and the European Commission that Microsoft was making its MSN search engine the default in the most recent version of its Web browser, Microsoft modified the software so that consumers could easily change to Google or Yahoo.

In Google’s statement on Sunday, it said that the potential purchase of Yahoo by Microsoft could pose threats to competition that needed to be examined by policy makers.

Google’s broadly worded concerns lacked detailed claims about any anticompetitive effects of the deal, and the company did not publicly ask regulators to take specific actions at this time.

“Could Microsoft now attempt to exert the same sort of inappropriate and illegal influence over the Internet that it did with the PC?” asked David Drummond, Google’s senior vice president and chief legal officer, writing on the company’s blog.

Yahoo and Microsoft declined to comment Sunday. On Friday, Microsoft’s general counsel, Bradford L. Smith, said in a statement: “The combination of Microsoft and Yahoo will create a more competitive marketplace by establishing a compelling No. 2 competitor for Internet search and online advertising.”

Google’s effort to derail or delay the deal on antitrust grounds mirrors Microsoft’s own actions with respect to Google’s bid for the online advertising specialist DoubleClick for $3.1 billion, announced in April.

The strategy is not surprising, considering that any delays would work to Google’s benefit. “Google can tap into all of the ill will that Microsoft has created in the last couple of decades on the antitrust front,” said Eric Goldman, director the High-Tech Law Institute at the Santa Clara University School of Law.

The outcome of any antitrust inquiry will hinge, in part, on how regulators define various markets. Microsoft-Yahoo, for instance, would have a large share of the Web-based e-mail market, but a smaller share of the overall e-mail market.

“The potential concern would be that Microsoft, if it acquires Yahoo, could do on the Internet what it did in the personal computer world — make technical standards more Microsoft-centric and steer consumers to its products,” said Stephen D. Houck, a lawyer representing the states involved in the consent decree against Microsoft.

Yahoo has not made a public statement about the proposed deal since Friday, when it said it was weighing Microsoft’s offer as well as alternatives and would “pursue the best course of action to maximize long-term value for shareholders.”

Carl W. Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond in Virginia, said an antitrust review of the Microsoft-Yahoo deal could take a long time and “may well bleed into a new administration with an entire new view on antitrust than the Bush administration.”

Steve Lohr contributed reporting.

Microsoft’s letter to the Yahoo board. How will Google react?

It has been an eventful day for Microsoft and Yahoo. No one knows if Yahoo is willing to sell themselves to Microsoft though. Microsoft has been eyeing the search engine market very long but without success due to the over-dominance of google and their only way to claw back in the game is to acquire Yahoo, the second biggest search engine.

However, are they willing to sell the stock to Microsoft is still another big issue. From various report, people wise, Yahoo and Microsoft have not been in friendly term.

As much as one would wonder, is the merger in anyway going to change the fact that google is still going to dominate the search market for at least another 4-5 years?

How Google is going to react to this situation? How the merger of Microsoft and Yahoo will pose a challenge to their future plan? Why don’t Google buy over Yahoo  to monopolize the search market?
It’s going to be an exciting time ahead for the next few months.

Guardian January 31, 2008

Board of Directors
Yahoo! Inc.
701 First Avenue
Sunnyvale, CA 94089
Attention: Roy Bostock, Chairman
Attention: Jerry Yang, Chief Executive Officer

Dear Members of the Board:

I am writing on behalf of the Board of Directors of Microsoft to make a proposal for a business combination of Microsoft and Yahoo!. Under our proposal, Microsoft would acquire all of the outstanding shares of Yahoo! common stock for per share consideration of $31 based on Microsoft’s closing share price on January 31, 2008, payable in the form of $31 in cash or 0.9509 of a share of Microsoft common stock. Microsoft would provide each Yahoo! shareholder with the ability to choose whether to receive the consideration in cash or Microsoft common stock, subject to pro-ration so that in the aggregate one-half of the Yahoo! common shares will be exchanged for shares of Microsoft common stock and one-half of the Yahoo! common shares will be converted into the right to receive cash. Our proposal is not subject to any financing condition.

Our proposal represents a 62% premium above the closing price of Yahoo! common stock of $19.18 on January 31, 2008. The implied premium for the operating assets of the company clearly is considerably greater when adjusted for the minority, non-controlled assets and cash. By whatever financial measure you use - EBITDA, free cash flow, operating cash flow, net income, or analyst target prices - this proposal represents a compelling value realization event for your shareholders.

We believe that Microsoft common stock represents a very attractive investment opportunity for Yahoo!’s shareholders. Microsoft has generated revenue growth of 15%, earnings growth of 26%, and a return on equity of 35% on average for the last three years. Microsoft’s share price has generated shareholder returns of 8% during the last one year period and 28% during the last three year period, significantly outperforming the S&P 500. It is our view that Microsoft has significant potential upside given the continued solid growth in our core businesses, the recent launch of Windows Vista, and other strategic initiatives.

Microsoft’s consistent belief has been that the combination of Microsoft and Yahoo! clearly represents the best way to deliver maximum value to our respective shareholders, as well as create a more efficient and competitive company that would provide greater value and service to our customers. In late 2006 and early 2007, we jointly explored a broad range of ways in which our two companies might work together. These discussions were based on a vision that the online businesses of Microsoft and Yahoo! should be aligned in some way to create a more effective competitor in the online marketplace. We discussed a number of alternatives ranging from commercial partnerships to a merger proposal, which you rejected. While a commercial partnership may have made sense at one time, Microsoft believes that the only alternative now is the combination of Microsoft and Yahoo! that we are proposing.

In February 2007, I received a letter from your Chairman indicating the view of the Yahoo! Board that “now is not the right time from the perspective of our shareholders to enter into discussions regarding an acquisition transaction.” According to that letter, the principal reason for this view was the Yahoo! Board’s confidence in the “potential upside” if management successfully executed on a reformulated strategy based on certain operational initiatives, such as Project Panama, and a significant organizational realignment. A year has gone by, and the competitive situation has not improved.

While online advertising growth continues, there are significant benefits of scale in advertising platform economics, in capital costs for search index build-out, and in research and development, making this a time of industry consolidation and convergence. Today, the market is increasingly dominated by one player who is consolidating its dominance through acquisition. Together, Microsoft and Yahoo! can offer a credible alternative for consumers, advertisers, and publishers. Synergies of this combination fall into four areas:

Scale economics: This combination enables synergies related to scale economics of the advertising platform where today there is only one competitor at scale. This includes synergies across both search and non-search related advertising that will strengthen the value proposition to both advertisers and publishers. Additionally, the combination allows us to consolidate capital spending.

Expanded R&D capacity: The combined talent of our engineering resources can be focused on R&D priorities such as a single search index and single advertising platform. Together we can unleash new levels of innovation, delivering enhanced user experiences, breakthroughs in search, and new advertising platform capabilities. Many of these breakthroughs are a function of an engineering scale that today neither of our companies has on its own.

Operational efficiencies: Eliminating redundant infrastructure and duplicative operating costs will improve the financial performance of the combined entity.

Emerging user experiences: Our combined ability to focus engineering resources that drive innovation in emerging scenarios such as video, mobile services, online commerce, social media, and social platforms is greatly enhanced.

We would value the opportunity to further discuss with you how to optimize the integration of our respective businesses to create a leading global technology company with exceptional display and search advertising capabilities. You should also be aware that we intend to offer significant retention packages to your engineers, key leaders and employees across all disciplines.

We have dedicated considerable time and resources to an analysis of a potential transaction and are confident that the combination will receive all necessary regulatory approvals. We look forward to discussing this with you, and both our internal legal team and outside counsel are available to meet with your counsel at their earliest convenience.

Our proposal is subject to the negotiation of a definitive merger agreement and our having the opportunity to conduct certain limited and confirmatory due diligence. In addition, because a portion of the aggregate merger consideration would consist of Microsoft common stock, we would provide Yahoo! the opportunity to conduct appropriate limited due diligence with respect to Microsoft. We are prepared to deliver a draft merger agreement to you and begin discussions immediately.

In light of the significance of this proposal to your shareholders and ours, as well as the potential for selective disclosures, our intention is to publicly release the text of this letter tomorrow morning.

Due to the importance of these discussions and the value represented by our proposal, we expect the Yahoo! Board to engage in a full review of our proposal. My leadership team and I would be happy to make ourselves available to meet with you and your Board at your earliest convenience. Depending on the nature of your response, Microsoft reserves the right to pursue all necessary steps to ensure that Yahoo!’s shareholders are provided with the opportunity to realize the value inherent in our proposal.

We believe this proposal represents a unique opportunity to create significant value for Yahoo!’s shareholders and employees, and the combined company will be better positioned to provide an enhanced value proposition to users and advertisers. We hope that you and your Board share our enthusiasm, and we look forward to a prompt and favorable reply.

Sincerely yours,

/s/ Steven A. Ballmer

Steven A. Ballmer

Chief Executive Officer

Microsoft Corporation

Facebook in dictionary. Is that real?

I was like wow when I read this news. This is definitely a point in 2007 where many more words start to make it to the dictionary. Previously we have the w00t and now we get “facebooked” and now it’s alright to say to someone, “please poke me, I need it badly.” lollerskate. I know it’s quite lame.

Extracted from Truemors

You know you’ve crossed the chasm and achieved critical mass when the name of your company officially enters the English vocabulary. Facebook is now an official word, as it has been added to the 2008 edition of the Collins English dictionary, as both a verb and a noun. “Pimp” and “poke” also have been given new definitions in relation to the social networking site. This will definitely be a useful addition, particularly for when you play Scrabulous.