I think a wise move would be for Google to buy Yahoo! and spin it off into a separate company. That would leave Google with two large competitors rather than a single monstrosity. It would also be cheaper for Google in the long run.

Hopefully, US government courts will rule that a purchase by MS would constitute an illegal monopoly. (As if they don't constitute a monopoly already!)

Burn, Billy, burn!

Let MS buy yahoo and take Google on. Ok it leaves only 2 big players in the game, but it will open more doors for a host young startups. With social engineering sites becoming yesterday's news, gaps will start to appear in the online world which need to be filled and who knows, maybe someone else will appear out of nowhere and side swipe the whole industry a la YouTube, Google, Facebook etc etc etc.

And to be 46bn lighter, MS will have to make this gamble work cos that doesn't leave much money for other high profile acquisitions.

As far as i'm concerned, let MS have Yahoo.

Its game on for the next generation.

But would Apple be in the running?

Google (and the other .com vultures) are just waiting for the failing company to fail, so they can pick over the remains at bargain basement prices.

Not that there's anything wrong with vultures, you understand!

Forrester are correct. 44.6bn is a small aquisition.

If you're Microsoft.........

Er... so you think that the FTC will rule a purchase by MS as an illegal monopoly but would allow a Google purchase?

Thing is, in the US it's likely to come down to politics. In theory, Microsoft could well argue that the combined entity will be smaller in revenue and reach terms than Google, and it could be accepted. The problem is that there are many people out there who are instinctively reluctant to let Microsoft go through with the purchase, comparing it to the Windows/ IE anti-trust case rather than the Google/ Doubleclick (or similar) deal.

MS> "Given that Google has roughly a 75 per cent market share worldwide for online paid search they are not in a position to do this. Given its super dominant market share, Google is clearly prevented by the antitrust laws from buying Yahoo! or buying this business from Yahoo!"

So, MS with something like 85% of the desktop market is no risk, but Google + Yahoo is? Ha ha ha! MS displays many of the hallmarks of someone with a mental illness.

I like the idea of a free/open source search engine, combined with 'open' media distribution, that appeared in another article's comments (I may be biased). Maybe a consortium of companies and people could buy Yahoo to give that a kickstart?

Why doesn't Google buy Microsoft.

Get all the chairs before Steve can start chucking them. :-)

Who is going to make an offer more attractive than the one which Microsoft has made?

All said, Yahoo as a brand and that's all. They own no innovative products and although they have a lot of tin in a lot of warehouses it's of negligible value. The only value this company has is the three people who still have yahoo.com set as their homepage and the 18 people who still have yahoo.com email addresses and have not switched over to gmail or the like.

I'd put up a fiver for the domain name... maybe £30 as it's a dotcom.