A long rumoured move by Microsoft has finally happening, the software giant is making an unsolicited takeover bid for internet portal Yahoo. It has offering 30 billion euros, that is 62% more than Yahoo's closing stock price on Thursday.Scott Kessler, an analyst with Standard & Poor’s said this lets Microsoft better challenge Google: "If you think about this, it's really all about one thing - it's about competition with Google, and Microsoft and Yahoo frankly have had some difficulties being successful in competing with Google; they've had some small victories in the last number of months, but ultimately Microsoft decided the time was right to strike."
At the moment, Google is number one in terms of site visits with a monthly average of 530 million last year. Microsoft and Yahoo are not that far behind, but Google dominates the global Web search market. Microsoft is by far the biggest company in terms of the value of its shares.
Not only does Google have more than three quarters of the internet search market it is also strong in online advertising and is diversifying into software, mobile phones and navigational mapping.
Bill Gates' billions would be very useful to Yahoo which has been losing market share to Google. However critics of a merger say that Microsoft and Yahoo have very different corporate cultures and many overlapping businesses. Yahoo says it will evaluate the Microsoft offer "carefully and promptly."
