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MICROSOFT is expected to announce whether it will pursue a hostile takeover, complete a negotiated deal or walkway from acquiring YAHOO sometime today . Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was ambiguously quoted Thursday, saying “With the right circumstances it’ll happen. Without the right circumstances it won’t happen.” While Microsoft has showed signs of upping it’s bid, key Yahoo shareholders are likely holding out for $35 to $37 a share. Of course, this could all change if Microsoft drops a hefty take-it-or-leave-it deal.
After a two week trial period, YAHOO reports that carrying GOOGLE search ads alongside search queries was successful. Despite potential antitrust issues, Yahoo could announce a deal to carry Google search ads within a week, utilizing a real-time auction platform that would select the most lucrative ads for a given search by Yahoo, Google and any of their competitors. The agreement is seen as a last minute effort to thwart a hostile takeover by MICROSOFT, as well as a way for Yahoo to significantly increase it’s cash flow.
BLACKBERRY parent company RESEARCH IN MOTION signed a global distribution deal with multimedia handset distributor BRIGHTPOINT. With two-thirds of its customers residing in North America, RIM is looking to expand its reach to a global market. The deal is viewed as a way of warding off increasing competition from APPLE, whose iPhone is becoming increasingly more work functional.
ADOBE signed a deal with cell phone manufacturers SONY ERICSSON, NOKIA, LG and MOTOROLA to bring it’s Flash component to cell phones. The move is an attempt to make the mobile browsing experience as easy and convenient as desktop viewing. While other manufacturers have signed similar deals to include preloading advanced web browsers in their handsets, APPLE has been a notable holdout, with Steve Jobs claiming he didn’t like how Flash worked on the iPhone.
Despite posting a 13% decline in first quarter profits, COMCAST showed gains by luring in broadband and phone customers. While Comcast lost 57,000 cable subscribers in the first quarter, the cable company claims that two-thirds of it’s 492,00 new subscribers were consumers switching over from telco DSL service. On the heel of TIME WARNER spinning off its cable company, this shows increasing leverage from the cable companies to battle telco’s in the on going broadband wars.
After a year in beta, GOOGLE’s TV Ads are ready for advertisers. Google’s TV Ads are supposed to make the TV ad buying process simple for small businesses by breaking down the process into a few easy steps; upload commercial, select budget, and where you’d like the ad to run. After those three simple steps, small businesses with enough money can have their commercial on the DISH NETWORK, who is the only service to currently offer Google TV Ads.