Microsoft to Yahoo: “Get Lost”

Steve Ballmer, the Microsoft CEO, responded to the latest plea for an acquisition from Jerry Yang, Yahoo’s CEO, by essentially telling them to get lost. After successfully fending off a hostile Microsoft acquisition, a near shareholder revolt, a mass exodus of high level staff, and their stock subsequently tanking Yahoo is grasping at straws for their future. I would argue that this is unneeded, Yahoo still has a lot of talent, but they need to reinvent themselves, and stop thinking of themselves as a search engine, a portal, or an ad server; they need to embrace the web properties and other companies that they own (Zimbra) and build upon that to find their niches. Furthermore, they need to dump the properties and companies that are not inline with that niche or are not going to be profitable over the long term.

So in my opinion, if Microsoft’s is true to their word that they are not interested, Yahoo needs to take this as the final word in this ugly chapter in their history and use it to spur them to build a new exciting company.