It took a full two years longer than I'd expected but finally they've done it, Microsoft has made an offer to buy Yahoo!, and that so called analyst can choke on his Chateau Latour.

The deal is worth $44.6 Billion and Steven Ballmer, Microsoft’s chief executive said:

“This proposal represents a compelling value realization event for your shareholders,”

My next prediction...they're (Mircrosoft) are possibly two years to late.

While the deal does still make sense from the point of view of:

• aggregating user databases for increased ad targeting sophistication
• maximising advertiser revenues across all their websites
• acquiring search patent portfolios (possible leverage over Google?)
• owning possibly the webs biggest portfolio of different websites

There is still the potential that the merger between Yahoo! and Microsoft would be costly and difficult.

The outcome - Google and Microsoft, like two giants beasts circling each other for battle, but each chasing the others behind. As Microsoft looks to improve on the web, Google is trying to bite them on their flank - the enterprise software front, darn that's going to be one hell of a messy fight!!!