| By Maureen O'Gara |
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| November 9, 2008 03:00 PM EST |
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2,900 |
Jerry Yang’s pants are down around his ankles.
He’s got no Google deal. And he can’t tease Microsoft into taking another run at Yahoo.
After Yang publicly asked Microsoft to take another shot Wednesday, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer returned this volley from Sydney, Australia this morning:
“We made an offer… We made another offer. It was clear that Yahoo didn’t want to sell the business to us and we moved on. We tried at one point to do a partnership around search, not an acquisition. And that didn’t work either, and we moved on… and they moved on… We are not interested in going back and re-looking at an acquisition. I don’t know why they would be either, frankly. They turned us down at $33 a share.”
He did leave Yang one rabbit hole to scoot down.
“I’m sure,” he said, “there are still opportunities for some kind of partnership around search, but I think acquisition is a thing of the past.”
And as long as he was on a testosterone-charged buzz, he sent a warning to Google as well.
“If anybody thinks the future of search is going to look like the present search, that’s crazy. The user interface on search hasn’t changed in six years. You still get the same dull, boring 10 blue links, for God’s sake. Can’t we do better than that?”
Makes it sound like Microsoft found something creative to do after breaking its horns on Yahoo. Hmm. Maybe Google outsmarted itself by carrying Yahoo’s water. Hmm.
Maureen O'Gara the most read technology reporter for the past 20 years, is the Cloud Computing and Virtualization News Desk editor of SYS-CON Media. She is the publisher of famous "Billygrams" and the editor-in-chief of "Client/Server News" for more than a decade. One of the most respected technology reporters in the business, Maureen can be reached by email at maureen(at)sys-con.com or paperboy(at)g2news.com, and by phone at 516 759-7025.
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