04.06.08

Gemini version available ♊︎

Microsoft Fires Up Proxy War Against Yahoo as Debt Looms Over

Posted in Finance, Google, Microsoft, Open XML, Search at 1:50 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

When it’s cheaper to corner and squash rivals than to make better products…

In the previous post we showed an attack by Microsoft against a prominent figure. Microsoft made it personal. This was intended to promote Microsoft’s business interests. It also serves as a warning sign to anyone else who ‘dares’ to question OOXML.

We promised to write some more about Microsoft's proxy fight against Yahoo because not only does it bear a resemblance to the above only at a larger scale, but it also intensified yesterday. In case you have not seen those development in the news yet, here are a bunch of headlines with accompanying snippets.

1. CNET: Microhoo: Ballmer takes off his gloves

What Ballmer means: Jerry, you are making us both look bad. It’s time to get in gear, and if I have to bring on the irate dancing monkey and go straight to the shareholders, I will.

2. Wall Street Journal: Microsoft Threatens Yahoo Board With Proxy Battle, Lower Bid

Microsoft Corp. Chief Executive Steven A. Ballmer threatened Yahoo Inc. directors with a hostile takeover of the company if they don’t reverse course and agree to a deal within the next three weeks.

You will find some more details in this most recent update from CNET.

Microsoft on Saturday issued an ultimatum to Yahoo, giving the Internet search pioneer three weeks to enter formal merger negotiations and conclude a deal.

The software giant threatened to launch a proxy fight to unseat Yahoo’s board of directors, as well as take its case straight to Yahoo investors should no deal be reached in that period.

And as a further cattle prod in getting a deal consummated, Microsoft threatened to lower its existing bid, citing how Yahoo’s value will be hurt if it needs to resort to such hostile means.

“It’s all very similar to what you find in those infamous OOXML abuses, wherein Microsoft just sets the deck and games the system…”This is not exactly a topic for us to cover because it’s broad and would most likely prove to be a distraction, but if you have watched this saga since the beginning, then you would know that Microsoft urged various parties (proxies) to legally assault Yahoo and apply pressure to it. Additionally, Microsoft tries to grab seats on the board (squeezing in ‘insiders’, potentially secretly, according to last week’s reports) so as to make Yahoo more ‘compliant’ until it re-evaluates the offer, this time deciding ‘properly’.

It’s all very similar to what you find in those infamous OOXML abuses, wherein Microsoft just sets the deck and games the system by ensuring only obedient people are to vote, or at least a sufficiently-large majority of them. Watching what Microsoft has done to Yahoo so far is painful because the tactics are truly appalling.

Listed below are headlines we have accumulated and they are sorted roughly chronologically to tell you the story so far:

For those who still believe that a Yahoo takeover would be a ‘win’ for Microsoft (like the OOXML 'win'), consider the following article which appeared in Forbes just over a fortnight ago. Of interest:

Co-founder Bill Gates can’t be thrilled with watching Ballmer drain the company’s cash. He didn’t get so rich by buying at the top of the market.

Going a little further back, watch the detailed article from Reuters:

Microsoft Corp said on Monday it may borrow money for the first time in its history to fund a portion of its $44.6 billion unsolicited offer for Yahoo Inc.

Or from Glyn Moody:

The rest of the $44.6bn (£22.3bn) deal would be financed with an undisclosed amount of credit.

What that means is that it must squeeze as much money as it can from its operations to fund that debt and still pay dividends to shareholders, who will be looking for some payback from the Yahoo takeover. Giving away software is the last thing it would want to do in these circumstances, and
the DreamSpark announcement shows just how worried it is about the future.

We wrote more extensively about Microsoft financial issues right here. Do not be misled into thinking that Microsoft can defeat Google quite so easily. It can cause harm to some competitor, albeit at a hugely high cost.

To reduce expenses, Microsoft reaches out to foreign labour. We wrote about this recently in order to show that Microsoft uses nothing but excuses and resorts to truth-bending in order to justify its actions (mocking Americans’ intelligence in the process). Here are a couple of picks from the latest news. What you see here is a form of blackmail for visas (c/f other forms of Microsoft blackmail in [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]).

Visa woes? Microsoft has Vancouver, B.C.

The majority of those workers are graduates of U.S. universities who can’t stay in the country because of visa issues, said Microsoft spokesman Lou Gellos. Another 15 percent to 20 percent are from Canadian universities, Gellos said.

Who Got H-1B Visas Petitions Approved Last Year? Look At The List

The top 25 H-1B visa recipient companies contacted by Durbin and Grassley this week include Infosys, Wipro, Satyam, Cognizant, Microsoft, and Tata.

Marketing is the art of hypnosis. Microsoft is doing as well as it manages to have you believe it does. Learn not to trust what you are told about Microsoft by the press and the analysts whom it cites. Microsoft is a lot more fragile that most people realise.

Share in other sites/networks: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
  • Reddit
  • email

Decor ᶃ Gemini Space

Below is a Web proxy. We recommend getting a Gemini client/browser.

Black/white/grey bullet button This post is also available in Gemini over at this address (requires a Gemini client/browser to open).

Decor ✐ Cross-references

Black/white/grey bullet button Pages that cross-reference this one, if any exist, are listed below or will be listed below over time.

Decor ▢ Respond and Discuss

Black/white/grey bullet button If you liked this post, consider subscribing to the RSS feed or join us now at the IRC channels.

DecorWhat Else is New


  1. Journalism Cannot and Quite Likely Won't Survive on the World Wide Web

    We’re reaching the point where the overwhelming majority of new pages on the Web (the World Wide Web) are basically junk, sometimes crafted not by humans; how to cope with this rapid deterioration is still an unknown — an enigma that demands hard answers or technical workarounds



  2. Do Not Assume Pensions Are Safe, Especially When Managed by Mr. EPOTIF Benoît Battistelli and António Campinos

    With the "hoax" that is the financial assessment by António Campinos (who is deliriously celebrating the inauguration of illegal and unconstitutional kangaroo courts) we urge EPO workers to check carefully the integrity of their pensions, seeing that pension promises have been broken for years already



  3. Links 04/06/2023: Why Flatpak and Wealth of Devices With GNU/Linux

    Links for the day



  4. Gemini Links 04/06/2023: Rosy Crow 1.1.3 and NearlyFreeSpeech.NET

    Links for the day



  5. IRC Proceedings: Saturday, June 03, 2023

    IRC logs for Saturday, June 03, 2023



  6. Links 04/06/2023: Azure Outage Again (So Many!) and Tiananmen Massacre Censored

    Links for the day



  7. Links 03/06/2023: Qubes OS 4.2.0 RC1 and elementaryOS Updates for May

    Links for the day



  8. Gemini Links 03/06/2023: Hidden Communities and Exam Prep is Not Education

    Links for the day



  9. Links 03/06/2023: IBM Betraying LibreOffice Some More (After Laying off LibreOffice Developers)

    Links for the day



  10. Gemini Links 03/06/2023: Bubble Woes and Zond Updates

    Links for the day



  11. Links 03/06/2023: Apache NetBeans 18 and ArcaOS 5.0.8

    Links for the day



  12. IRC Proceedings: Friday, June 02, 2023

    IRC logs for Friday, June 02, 2023



  13. The Developing World Abandons Microsoft Windows, GNU/Linux at All-Time Highs on Desktops/Laptops

    Microsoft, with 80 billion dollars in longterm debt and endless layoffs, is losing the monopolies; the media doesn’t mention this, but some publicly-accessible data helps demonstrate that



  14. Links 02/06/2023: Elive ‘Retrowave’ Stable and Microsoft's Half a Billion Dollar Fine for LinkeIn Surveillance in Europe

    Links for the day



  15. Linux Foundation 'Research' Has a New Report and Of Course It Uses Only Proprietary Software

    The Linux Foundation has a new report, promoted by Clickfraud Spamnil and others; of course they’re rejecting Free software, they’re just riding the “Linux” brand and speak of “Open Source” (which they reject themselves)



  16. Links 02/06/2023: Arti 1.1.5 and SQL:2023

    Links for the day



  17. Gemini Links 02/06/2023: Vimwiki Revisited, SGGS Revisited

    Links for the day



  18. Geminispace/GemText/Gemini Protocol Turn 4 on June 20th

    Gemini is turning 4 this month (on the 20th, according to the founder) and I thought I’d do a spontaneous video about how I use Gemini, why it's so good, and why it’s still growing (Stéphane Bortzmeyer fixed the broken cron job — or equivalent of it — a day or two after I had mentioned the issue)



  19. HMRC Does Not Care About Tax Fraud Committed by UK Government Contractor, Sirius 'Open Source'

    The tax crimes of Sirius ‘Open Source’ were reported to HMRC two weeks ago; HMRC did not bother getting back to the reporters (victims of the crime) and it’s worth noting that the reporters worked on UK government systems for many years, so maybe there’s a hidden incentive to bury this under the rug



  20. Our IRC at 15th Anniversary

    So our IRC community turns 15 today (sort of) and I’ve decided to do a video reflecting on the fact that some of the same people are still there after 15 years



  21. IRC Proceedings: Thursday, June 01, 2023

    IRC logs for Thursday, June 01, 2023



  22. Links 02/06/2023: NixOS 23.05 and Rust 1.70.0

    Links for the day



  23. Gemini Links 02/06/2023: Flying High With Gemini and Gogios Released

    Links for the day



  24. Links 01/06/2023: KStars 3.6.5 and VEGA ET1031 RISC-V Microprocessor in Use

    Links for the day



  25. Gemini Links 01/06/2023: Scam Call and Flying High With Gemini

    Links for the day



  26. Links 01/06/2023: Spleen 2.0.0 Released and Team UPC Celebrates Its Own Corruption

    Links for the day



  27. IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, May 31, 2023

    IRC logs for Wednesday, May 31, 2023



  28. Tux Machines Closing the Door on Twitter Because Twitter is Dead (for a Lot of People)

    Tux Machines recently joined millions of others who had already quit Twitter, including passive posting (fully or partly automated)



  29. Links 31/05/2023: Inkscape’s 1.3 Plans and New ARM Cortex-A55-Based Linux Chip

    Links for the day



  30. Gemini Links 31/05/2023: Personality of Software Engineers

    Links for the day


RSS 64x64RSS Feed: subscribe to the RSS feed for regular updates

Home iconSite Wiki: You can improve this site by helping the extension of the site's content

Home iconSite Home: Background about the site and some key features in the front page

Chat iconIRC Channel: Come and chat with us in real time

Recent Posts