Some people shape the world through hard work and creativity, while others do it by force and forcing others into submission. I don't know exactly who is Carl Icahn, if you ask me details about his past, but I know one thing for certain: after following closely the Yahoo-Microsoft match, and seeing his intervention taking place, every time I talk about something he has done, I have "its" in my mind, instead of "his," and I don't think I have to explain too much - after all, that's what a corporate raider is - a predator, a human that's less of a human, and more of a machine without soul, but let's not make this personal. After all, today he just addressed his "fellow Yahoo! shareholders" a message showing real concern about the company's fate, as we're going to see right away...

Although the open letter to the Yahoo! Shareholders is available on Carl Icahn's blog, and you can easily view it by using the link in the previous paragraph, I want to help you spare some of your precious time, so I'll quote the most interesting(or simply outrageous, for some) parts. Here we go...

"Dear Fellow Yahoo! Shareholders:

Over the years I have attempted to make changes at many companies but I have yet to see a company distort, omit and twist events and facts in the manner that Yahoo! has done in their press release issued Saturday night, July 12th," started Carl Icahn his open letter. Oh, well, as if Yahoo is the big bad wolf here, and Mr. Icahn, the poor little girl...

Now, here's the interesting part. It may be a bit long, but it's worth your time, believe me!

"During the last week, Goldman Sachs called me a number of times asking me to relate to them any transaction that Microsoft might be interested in transacting with Yahoo! I discussed with them the possibility of doing a “Search only” deal wherein Microsoft would purchase “Search” from Yahoo! and pay Yahoo! for any searches that would originate from a Yahoo! content page. Yahoo! felt that a deal of this nature would be very interesting, but only if Microsoft would guarantee the revenue that Yahoo! now received. This would obviously be a great deal for Yahoo! because Yahoo! would, for five years, receive a minimum of the $2.3 billion they are currently receiving as long as they continued to supply the page views and affiliate traffic they now had. Heretofore, Microsoft had been unwilling to even come close to making this guarantee. However, after I negotiated with Steve Ballmer for the better part of a week, he agreed to the guarantee. He also agreed to commit $7.7 billion dollars to the transaction (consisting of a $1 billion payment for “Search”, a $2.8 billion loan and a $3.9 billion tender offer to Yahoo! shareholders). Under the transaction, Yahoo! shareholders would receive $16.25 per share in distributions (consisting of cash and securities) and be left with a content company which would have a minimum guarantee of $2.3 billion per year of “Search” revenue from Microsoft and cost saving synergies from exiting the “Search” business that <-336x280 Large Rectangle - right->
Yahoo! has publicly stated would be $750 million per year (excluding the benefits from reduction of stock compensation and other non-cash items). However, Microsoft believes the synergies from Yahoo! exiting “Search” would be far superior and that Yahoo!’s 2009 GAAP operating income would exceed $2 billion. Microsoft would be making a substantial equity investment in the remaining company at a valuation of $19.50 per share. Furthermore, Yahoo! would be spared the great expense of maintaining “Search” as well as having to spend billions in developing new technology to compete with Google and Microsoft - which it is highly doubtful they would be able to do successfully. Additionally, Yahoo! would be able to avoid the great risk of seeing “Search” continue to lose market share and eventually melt away."

So, Carl Icahn is saving Yahoo? Come on! Who said Yahoo needs to be saved, and how is it possible to say such things like Yahoo Search "melting away??!" I wonder, and I have no answer to that yet, but I think the game is getting uglier with each day.

As a Yahoo user, I still think they have much to offer, and I don't think they'll ever "melt away," but I would really like to hear the opinion of some small Yahoo shareholder, so if you're one of them, please drop your comment below. What do you think? Would you like to see this company becoming a puppet in Icahn's and Ballmer's hands?

When I found out that Carl Icahn gets involved in the Yahoo-Microsoft battle, I got scared a little. Considering his past similar interventions in various companies, seeing Yang pushed aside and Yahoo offered on a plate to Microsoft started to look like a possible scenario. Now, I finally got my piece of mind back. It's funny to notice that some of the important announcements in the Yahoo-Microsoft match were announced during weekends, so let's see what did they do this Saturday...

For now, everything looks good to me - Yahoo announced they rejected the offer to sell the search business to Microsoft, and leave the remaining part of the company at Carl Icahn's disposal. In a statement, the search giant said the joint proposal from Microsoft and Icahn received on Friday was a quick "take it or leave it" one, being given less than 24 hours to accept. Even more, the two sharks made it clear they were unwilling to negotiate the fundamental terms, including the immediate replacement of Yahoo's board.
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Yahoo's Chairman, Roy Bostock, said "This odd and opportunistic alliance of Microsoft and Carl Icahn has anything but the interests of Yahoo's stockholders in mind," and I fully agree with that one. Continuing to state the obvious, he added "Clearly, Microsoft, having failed to advance in search, is aligning with the short-term objectives of Mr. Icahn to coerce Yahoo into selling its core strategic search assets on terms that are highly advantageous to Microsoft, but disadvantageous to Yahoo stockholders."

I am not a Yahoo shareholder, so I can't say anything from that point of view but, as a Yahoo user, I only wish to see them continue along the current path and, if needed, go together with any other company they wish, apart from Microsoft and AOL, and I guess you can figure out why, in both cases!

Today, another episode in the eternal Microsoft vs Apple vs Linux unfolds, and this time, it seems the Redmond giant is winning. As usual, the results coming from different sources could be anything else but the truth, so don't worry - Microsoft's products are not better than Apple's, and they are not kicking the penguin around, either. This is all about statistics, research, and the results of a study conducted by a certain Web monitoring firm, but it is worth being mentioned, and here's why...


According to Pingdom, the Windows Update site was up and running 100% of the time, in the second quarter of this year, while Apple's Software Update had a 99.9% uptime, with Ubuntu falling on the third place, with "only" 98.64%. OK, these are the percentages, but what about measured downtime?<-125x125 Button - right->

For the three-month period considered in the study, the Apple Software Update was down for 2 hours and 34 minutes, while Ubuntu didn't respond for a full day, 5 hours, and 45 minutes.

Just as a side note, I guess Apple would have got the same score as Microsoft, if the iPhone 3G wouldn't have started the online madness which caused the servers to go down... as for the Linux competitor, I think the release of Ubuntu 8.04 had its contribution in the large downtime measured.

If only overall system reliability could be the same as the one of the software update service...we would surely have a completely different OS landscape, don't you think? :)