After CEO Carol Bartz has been brutally fired from the company, Yahoo! decline has definitely become more prominent than ever. Their profit share recorded a loss of 24%, which in numbers correspond to 1,22 billions (according to WSJ).
Google is ready to buy, but other competitors are on his way. Microsoft, which attempted to buy the Sunnivale Company again in 2008 and Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce search engine whose 40% of shares are held by Yahoo.
It is unlikely Google can buy Yahoo!, especially considering Google is already under fire by the both the American and European antitrust for a dominance position.
What will be the real advantage for Google in such a deal?
Google won’t be able to take over on the search engine side, as Microsoft has a deal for the next 9 year to use Yahoo! technology as well as power their search results that will be provided by Bing data centers.
From a PPC side, Microsoft has the same deal in place. In US, Yahoo! is still serving Ads from Microsoft Network, and in EU this agreement is going to be replicated early next year.
So I don’t foresee any reason for Google to buy the company. Not at this stage and unless they want to be considered as benefactors, which is not properly the Google objective at this stage.
Perhaps, in the next following days we can read how the situation will evolve, and if the rumours of a Google interests will be confirmed in some of their blogs.