14 DAY TRIAL // Yahoo’s trying to step away as much as possible from its partnership with Microsoft in the search business, but very soon the two companies might actually benefit from a tighter collaboration.
A report published by re/code reveals that Microsoft might be one of the parties that offered financial support to a group of companies planning to take over Yahoo for an undisclosed sum. What’s very important to note, however, is that Microsoft isn’t necessarily looking into buying Yahoo, but more of making sure that no matter who does it, its search partnership with the company goes on.
Microsoft’s agreement with Yahoo was one of the catalysts of Bing’s growth, as Redmond’s search engine has significantly improved its market share in the last years and got closer to Google in the US market. Third-party data puts Bing at 20 percent, while Google still leads the charts with nearly 65 percent.
Microsoft again going after Yahoo?
Although Redmond isn’t currently planning to purchase Yahoo, Redmond has previously looked into the matter and former CEO Steve Ballmer even attempted to negotiate a deal in 2008.
Instead, Microsoft and Yahoo signed a 10-year search deal the next year, but the latter decided renegotiate terms in 2015 and decide that Bing would no longer be the exclusive search provider for its search engine.
Details on how much the group of companies is willing to pay for Yahoo are not yet available, but rumor has it that the firm is valued at approximately $10 billion (€8.9 billion) without all adjacent services and subsidiaries across the world. Should they be included in the takeover, the price could go as high as $32 billion (€28.6 billion), the report states.
We’ve reached out to Microsoft to see if the company has anything to add to this report and will update the article should the software giant provide us with an official statement.