to simply place another nail in the share price of yahoo.

then to scoop the whole thing up at an bargain basement price.

Yangs arrogance has lost him Yahoo! and Ballmer is just rubbing salt in the wound.

This must be a shame for the furniture manufacturers, what with no-one pissing Ballmer off he's not throwing as many chairs around.

Well wait long enough and iCahns parasites will drive the price down far enough to make it an irresistible bargain basement.

The sooner they get kicked off the board the sooner Yahoo can get back to business.

"Microsoft shares are down 45 per cent on the year"

So what did Bill know, and when did he know it?

To support your conspiracy theory, Ballmer would have to see some value in Yahoo. What could that be?

Ballmer has a Google obsession and will try to beat Google if he can. At the start of the year MS + yahoo were bigger than Google in search and therefore an aquisition would give him an opportunity to yell: search, search, search...

But move on a few months: Google is now bigger than everyone else combined. There is absolutely no benefit for Ballmer. Why acquire to draw attention to the fact you're smaller?