It's a merger, or takeover, that has been considered numerous times over the past decade, and according to the New York Post, it's being discussed again.
The new approach follows an offer Microsoft made to acquire Yahoo! a few months ago, sources said. But Yahoo! spurned the advances of the Redmond, Wash.-based software giant. Wall Street sources put a roughly $50 billion price tag on Yahoo!.
But it's hard to see the benefits in product terms: all you'd get is a load of pointless duplication.
Whether it makes sense to run the two companies separately but combine the advertising platforms is another issue, and might provide enough mass to compete with Google's monopoly power. But that could be done without a takeover, and hardly sounds like it would be worth $50 billion.
Update: But there is no deal, says The Wall Steet Journal. It says: "Microsoft and Yahoo discussed a possible merger or other matchup that would pair their respective strengths, say people familiar with the situation. The merger discussions are no longer active, these people say, but that doesn't preclude the two companies from some other form of cooperation."
