<story><title>Verizon nears deal to acquire Yahoo</title><url>http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-22/verizon-said-nearing-deal-to-buy-yahoo-beating-rival-bidders</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>chollida1</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s now being reported that Verizon and Yahoo are exclusively negotiating. That&amp;#x27;s as close as anyone has gotten since Microsoft made an offer years ago.&lt;p&gt;Verizon is really doing a big transition with this acquisition and their AOL acquisition. They&amp;#x27;ve acquired alot of valuable web space to put adds on&amp;#x2F;monetize. This is a probably good news for Yahoo employee&amp;#x27;s as Verizon then has a vested interest in keeping the company running and not splitting it up into pieces like a PE firm may be more inclined to do.&lt;p&gt;The one interesting thing I&amp;#x27;ve heard is that Verizon isn&amp;#x27;t interested in Yahoo&amp;#x27;s patent portfolio, which means it could still be up for grabs.&lt;p&gt;Hopefully its bought by a Microsoft&amp;#x2F;Google consortium and very liberally cross licensed rather than a private equity firm who will look to more aggressively monetize it.&lt;p&gt;I also heard that Tim Armstrong, formerly of Google with Mayer will lead the combined AOL&amp;#x2F;Yahoo company, which means that Mayer probably isn&amp;#x27;t coming along as part of this deal. I think most people expected this.&lt;p&gt;If this ends up going through for the reported 3.5 billion, then Verizon has bought a significant portion of traffic on the web for roughly 8 billion (AOL was acquired for 4.4 Billion).&lt;p&gt;This could end up looking like a very good acquisition in a few years!</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>someone7x</author><text>I did a double take when I read Tim Armstrong as the new CEO.&lt;p&gt;I remember reading a scathing in-depth piece on him some time ago. Fired a guy in the middle of a meeting, shamed some employees that had delivery complications with their children. I was surprised he&amp;#x27;s still around.&lt;p&gt;I suppose the new CEO will be as criticized and unloved as the old one.</text></comment>
<story><title>Verizon nears deal to acquire Yahoo</title><url>http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-22/verizon-said-nearing-deal-to-buy-yahoo-beating-rival-bidders</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>chollida1</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s now being reported that Verizon and Yahoo are exclusively negotiating. That&amp;#x27;s as close as anyone has gotten since Microsoft made an offer years ago.&lt;p&gt;Verizon is really doing a big transition with this acquisition and their AOL acquisition. They&amp;#x27;ve acquired alot of valuable web space to put adds on&amp;#x2F;monetize. This is a probably good news for Yahoo employee&amp;#x27;s as Verizon then has a vested interest in keeping the company running and not splitting it up into pieces like a PE firm may be more inclined to do.&lt;p&gt;The one interesting thing I&amp;#x27;ve heard is that Verizon isn&amp;#x27;t interested in Yahoo&amp;#x27;s patent portfolio, which means it could still be up for grabs.&lt;p&gt;Hopefully its bought by a Microsoft&amp;#x2F;Google consortium and very liberally cross licensed rather than a private equity firm who will look to more aggressively monetize it.&lt;p&gt;I also heard that Tim Armstrong, formerly of Google with Mayer will lead the combined AOL&amp;#x2F;Yahoo company, which means that Mayer probably isn&amp;#x27;t coming along as part of this deal. I think most people expected this.&lt;p&gt;If this ends up going through for the reported 3.5 billion, then Verizon has bought a significant portion of traffic on the web for roughly 8 billion (AOL was acquired for 4.4 Billion).&lt;p&gt;This could end up looking like a very good acquisition in a few years!</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>exhilaration</author><text>&lt;i&gt;Hopefully its bought by a Microsoft&amp;#x2F;Google consortium and very liberally cross licensed&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t think such a consortium exists, Microsoft and Google are usually on opposite sides.  Microsoft (along with Apple&amp;#x2F;RIM&amp;#x2F;others) bought the Nortel patents in 2011 and sued Google, Samsung, Huawei, and others. Google bought Motorola and its patents the same year and sued Microsoft.  Patents are weaponized as soon as these companies acquire them.</text></comment>