After news came that Jerry Yang would be stepping down as Yahoo!'s CEO, the immediate reaction by analysts, Wall Street, and your neighbor's cat was: MICROSOFT ACQUISITION TIME!
But Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, is saying: Not so fast.
Ballmer has said time and again that Microsoft has moved on from the possibility of returning to the good ol' days of negotiating a Yahoo! acquisition.
And while it's tempting to think that he's just waiting for that stock to drop to around $2-3 a share (hey, only $6-7 more to go!), consider this: Yahoo's VP of Search Technology, Sean Suchter is leaving the Sunnyvale search engine. And I hope he likes rain and coffee, because rumor has it that he's headed to Microsoft.
That rumor was reported by none other than Kara Swisher, who is pretty much never wrong. The only thing I'm wondering is: Where's the noncompete agreement?
Amidst the rumors and denials, one thing is for sure. No matter how much Ballmer would like the speculation to end, it won't.
Introducing SES Online
Want to view one of the sessions you missed or listen to an especially informative presenter a second time? SES New York sessions are available for purchase on ClickZ Academy's new e-Learning site. SES is now Online!
