(By Richard Holway 7.00am Friday 31st Jul 09) "Nobody gets it" was Steve Ballmer's (CEO Microsoft) comment on the FT today - Yahoo and Microsoft on defensive. Yahoo shares extended the slump yesterday - now down 15% since the deal was announced. Ballmer also added that the deal was "a little bit complicated" but added a dig that it was us analysts who had the trouble coming to grips with it. I'm a simple guy. It's not that I can't get to grips with complex deals. It's far more that my long experience tells me that, just like 'complex' companies, 'complex' deals never seem to work. For one thing it's going to take an age to get this one through the various regulatory bodies. During that the competition (not just Google but search engines like Baidu in China) will make hay. Then there are the complex integration issues. Here you have to integrate teams that will continue to work for different companies! Sales with Yahoo. The technical bits with Microsoft.
It's not so much complicated. It's more like a nightmare.
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