Still Too Early to Declare A Winner...
On May 3, 2008, Microsoft withdrew its offer to acquire Yahoo! and chose not to pursue a hostile bid (see Exhibit 15). Microsoft had increased its offer to $33 per share (about $47.5 billion) but the two parties still could not reach an agreement. In addition, a recent successful Google-Yahoo! paid-search test and potential deal made the acquisition even more complicated for Microsoft. Two weeks after withdrawing its offer to purchase Yahoo!, Microsoft reopened the door to the possibility of a potential new investment in Yahoo! (not a total acquisition) while discussions were still ongoing between Yahoo! and Google
Robin Yanhong Li, cofounder, chairman, and CEO of Baidu feels that Baidu will someday pose a similar threat, saying, "If he Bill Gates] is worried about Google he will probably be more worried about Baidu somewhere down the road. When the Chinese market stops growing faster than other countries in world, we will look outside. The reason we focus here now is that this is the fastest growing market we can access.