Jerry Yang, who is also on the board of directors, has been urgently looking for and considering alternatives to a Microsoft acquisition soon after Ballmer and company made their bid.
Reports -- all attributed to anonymous sources in various media outlets -- have emerged in the past two weeks that Yang has held conversations with Google, AOL and News Corp., exploring various deals that would allow him to reject Microsoft's offer.
The key is that the shareholder value created by a competing deal would have to at least match the value of Microsoft's deal. Otherwise, Yahoo would make itself liable to shareholder lawsuits that alleged the board had failed to perform its fiduciary duty.
So far, as experts have analyzed the potential value to Yahoo of outsourcing its search advertising to Google, merging with AOL or selling a 20 percent stake to News Corp. in exchange for MySpace, the consensus has been that none of those scenarios comes close to matching Microsoft's offer.
Related news, commentary, and predictions:
- Prediction: Alternative bid for Yahoo
- Prediction: Yahoo to accept Microsoft acquisition by mid-March
- Report: Yahoo board reported split over Microsoft bid
- News: News Corp. said to be in talks for a stake in Yahoo
- Mark Anderson: An Open Letter to Steve Ballmer
- Ian Lamont: Microsoft's unrealized online dreams
- Net Views: Yahoo layoffs
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