Domain Magnate

According to the recently published stats by hitwise (first posted here), Google accounted for 67.90 percent of all U.S. searches in the four weeks ending April 26, 2008. Yahoo! Search, MSN Search and Ask.com each received 20.28, 6.26 and 4.17 percent respectively. The remaining 45 search engines in the Hitwise Search Engine Analysis Tool accounted for 1.40 percent of U.S. searches.

Hitwise data is based on the sample of 10 million US Internet users.  christianity read more »

Thi came as surprise..

according to a letter from Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer to Yahoo Chief Executive Jerry Yang.

But Yahoo demanded at least $53 billion, or $37 per share, according to Ballmer. That would have been nearly double Yahoo’s stock price of $19.18 at the time Microsoft first made its bid a little over three months ago.

“Clearly a deal is not to be,” Ballmer wrote.

A spokeswoman for Sunnyvale-based Yahoo didn’t immediately return a call seeking comment. read more »

Domain news reports:

As promised, we are keeping you up to date on this developing story…  As  we reported yesterday, Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer had held firm with the original offer, insisting it was fair in light of Yahoo’s eroding profits during the past two years. He threatened an attempt to oust Yahoo’s board if the 10 directors, including Chief Executive Jerry Yang, didn’t accept the offer by April 26th.
Since Yahoo has forced the issue by letting the deadline pass, Ballmer appears ready to put more money on the table. Microsoft’s board reportedly met earlier this week to consider raising the bid as high as $33 per share. It wasn’t clear whether Microsoft presented that figure, which would translate to about $47.5 billion for the deal, to Yahoo Friday. read more »

In a report published on Monday, Google said it was concerned about the free flow of information on the Internet if Microsoft was to succeed in acquiring Yahoo.“We would be concerned by any kind of acquisition of Yahoo by Microsoft,” Chief Executive Eric Schmidt told reporters.

“We would hope that anything they did would be consistent with the openness of the Internet, but I doubt it would be.”

Schmidt pointed to Microsoft’s past history and “the things that it has done that have been so difficult for everyone,” but he did not elaborate. read more »

Internet Explorer 8 Has Arrived. Now you can download the new version of IE here.

Personally, based on my long experience using MSFT products, I’m keeping my XP and firefox in 2008. New products from microsoft usually come with many new bugs and run slow.

It’s notable to mention that Miscosoft previously only promised to release IE8 in June and they are usually late by their own predictions, but this time the new browser came in early.

More info about the new release from pcmag: read more »

Forbes.com just released a new billionaires list and Bill Gates is only #3 with $58.0 billions!

Top two positions are taken by Warren Buffett and Carlos Slim Helu & family with 62 and 60 bln respectively.

See the full list here

It’s interesting to note that among top 8 billionaires there are 4 Indians and only 2 Americans. Roman Abramovich, the owner of London Chelsea, is no longer the richest man in Russia, Oleg Deripaska is #9, who is also the youngest in the top 25. Google founders Sergey and Larry are down to positions 32 and 33.

According to Forbes there are currently 1062 billionaires in the world.

AP reports:

DOVER, Del. (AP) — Two Detroit pension funds have sued Yahoo Inc. and its board of directors, saying they breached their duties to shareholders in trying to thwart a takeover by Microsoft Corp.

The lawsuit was filed in Delaware Chancery Court on Thursday by lawyers representing Detroit’s police and fire retirement system and general retirement system, as well as “all other similarly situated public shareholders.”

According to the lawsuit, Yahoo’s board is pursuing “value-destructive” third-party deals in an effort to fight off Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft, which on Feb. 1 announced a takeover bid of $31 per share in cash and stock, a 62 percent premium over Yahoo’s previous day’s closing price.

Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Yahoo, whose shares closed unchanged at $28.42 on Friday, rejected Microsoft’s $44.6 billion takeover bid as inadequate, but indicated that it might be willing to negotiate if the price was right. Yahoo is believed to want at least $40 per share, or about $56 billion. read more »