Maybe I'll Have a MSFT-free Life after all?

Nice post by Henry today on why he thinks Microsoft will end up walking from Yahoo after all. It takes a lot for Henry to say that. He thought this deal would happen far before it actually did and has consistently said it's a certainty, all of Jerry Yang's protestations aside. I've also said from day one this deal would happen. Everyone has. Look at the markets. Yahoo shareholders get an automatic return? Duh. Yahoo has been given ample opportunity to turn things around and hasn't. Guess what? You're public-- it's not your company. (I've also said this is a shame and a bad deal for the Internet but not in that lame way Eric Schmidt means it.)

Is it possible that Yang has played his non-existent hand of deuces well?

It'll be interesting to see how this affect tech take-overs if it doesn't go through. Will companies feel like they can just outlast Ballmer and he'll go away? Why in hell haven't they just raised the price by a dollar and been done with it? As Kara points out (in a post that also alleges Google is buying Digg) drawing this out increasingly makes both parties lose. There's something going on behind the scenes that no one has reported yet.

(I'm supposed to always disclose when I write about Yahoo that I report nothing I learn as a result of going to the HQ three days a week. Which is a shame because most big corporate secrets are unveiled in the studio makeup room...one day when I write my memoirs I'll divulge them all. mwa ha ha ha ha!)