So what? If MS had bought them then at that price, there'd by now be no Yahoo share price to track, so nobody would have been any the wiser!

"Ballmer is probably quietly relieved he withdrew from the deal six months ago, given the way the market has turned. Yahoo! rejected his offer of $33 a share, saying it was not enough. Since then, Yahoo!'s shares have lost more than half their value: Yahoo! was trading around $27 in May. An agreement would have left Microsoft out of pocket and raised questions about Ballmer's judgment."

So that's why we are in this financial crisis : because Ballmer wanted to tank Yahoo!'s price and that's how he did it. Kind of like throwing chairs in the office, but on a global market scale.

Now Yahoo!'s price has tanked and it is easy pickings for Monkey Boy, who can snap it up for a song and a skip.

Oohh, I feel the conspiracy threads building up already.

"questions about Ballmer's judgment."

So that fact that he offered $33 a share doesn't count, because Yahoo turned it down..?!

I think someone's confusing competence with publicity. Or shares with chairs, perhaps...

umm, this is El 'Reg you know the site with the tag line 'Biting the Hand that Feeds IT'.

It is not Dr Dobb's journal, or the Gentoo wiki, no, it is meant to be a sardonic look on the world of IT.

Recently it has had far too many group hug stories, very out of character; how to use your new Linux Netbook, save a shed, and talk like a pirate day, where's the hand biting there :)

I blame the merkins. But, then I always do. Primarily, because I just love their standard, you're just jealous response, it never fails to warm the cockles.

It seems you've missed the point, which was not to get Yahoo out of the market but rather, leverage their brand name to pile more sheep onto the MS search engine and advertising campaign. Yahoo going under before MS can get any market share out of it = utter fail. Remember MS is already paying people to use their Live Search via cashback rewards, meaning they are quite desperate to reign in Google and with good reason.