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Yahoo sold to US telecoms giant Verizon

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Yahoo sold to US telecoms giant Verizon

#131

Post by Osiris »

dogma1138 wrote: post #114
Macha wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also changed the decision process from "Pick 1 of Intel and AMD, plus pick 1 of nVidia and ATI" to "Pick Intel/nVidia or AMD/AMD" for companies like Dell/HP etc. so AMD and ATI's weaknesses compounded each other from then on.

Not sure, having the GPU division allowed them to bid for the Xbox and PS contracts. Having an APU allows them to play in the low end market which was dominated by Intel with their IGP, the vast majority of laptops do not come with a discrete GPU which meant that AMD could not compete with Intel at all prior to their acquisition of ATI unless they would develop their own GPU or license it from some one (they had plan…

Exactly, there's a reason that Xbox and PlayStation are both using AMD chips. What those systems needed was a lot more GPU power than CPU power, so AMD was well positioned to do that.

It's not a massive money maker for them, but I think that it positioned them well to push open standards like FreeSync, and Mantle/Vulcan. AMD is also fighting back by trying to develop open standards, knowing that proprietary ones wouldn't ever get any traction.

Re: Yahoo sold to US telecoms giant Verizon

#132

Post by themartorana »

nikdaheratik wrote: post #85
andy_ppp wrote: post #47

What the hell has Marissa Mayer been paid for? Everything about this smells like Yahoo! is being run by idiot MBAs with some spreadsheets somewhere totally misunderstanding that technology can empower people to do fantastic things including those working within Yahoo! - instead it's been hamstrung by each property not being held accountable to it's competitors effectively. I would have started competitors (startups)…

I don't think you can put this all on Mayer. It's basically a tug of war between two different groups of key investors, with the concerns about the IRS also playing a role. One group thought that Y! had a shot at a viable business. The other group wanted out, but didn't want to sell until they got their cut from the Alibaba/Y!JP investments (which also propped up the stock price for the whole thing). Mayer was hired…

TIL.

Re: Yahoo sold to US telecoms giant Verizon

#133

Post by protomyth »

slater wrote: post #3
protomyth wrote: post #2

Mods: What was with all the other submissions being marked DUP?

They're ... duplicates...?

They weren't at the time, someone was marking all the early submissions then putting a link to a two day old thread. It looked like someone was picking what source would make the front page.

Re: Yahoo sold to US telecoms giant Verizon

#134

Post by riyadparvez »

MichaelGG wrote: post #52
asdfologist wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People were also shocked when Zuckerberg turned down $1+ billion offers. Hindsight is 20/20.

To accurately judge though, we need to know how many people/companies are offered large sums and decline, and how that works out. It might still have been a bad decision that just happened to work out.

It's the same story as college dropout entrepreneurs, who became very successful and made million dollars. But, how many college dropouts are out there who are barely earning their livelihoods?

Re: Yahoo sold to US telecoms giant Verizon

#135

Post by shmerl »

rayiner wrote: post #125
shmerl wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It can accommodate it profitably. But any such undertaking is a long term investment, and Verizon doesn't operate in such categories. They want to rip profits faster. Also, they have internal conflict of interests. I.e. their execs are all about wireless, and simply don't care about landline business. Splitting it in two could actually help, since then they'll care about improving. > It's not like anybody else is cho…

Verizon's wireline unit is making low single digit operating profit margins with its existing footprint. I'm pretty sure expansion into less favorable markets would push that into the red. There is a reason Google only enters carefully-vetted markets that waive the usual roadblocks to fiber buildout--it's the only way to make money in the industry. And Verizon is a public company. Investors are pushing it to ditch wi…

> Verizon's wireline unit is making low single digit operating profit margins with its existing footprint.

Because they never cared about improving its efficiency. They actually noted, that when they upgrade to fiber, their expenses drop. A huge drain on their landline profits is their copper network which is falling apart. Their fiber is profitable.

Investors want them to focus on wireless. As I said, if it would have been split off, investors would have cared about how to improve their landline profits.

Re: Yahoo sold to US telecoms giant Verizon

#136

Post by tootie »

tehwebguy wrote: post #49

Verizon shouldn't be allowed to own any web properties. They inject a unique subscriber identifier into your HTTP requests unless you turn it off. http://www.verizonwireless.com/support/unique-identifier-hea...

They own AOL and now Yahoo, so no place any users actually visit.

Re: Yahoo sold to US telecoms giant Verizon

#137

Post by ubersync »

Why isn't this mentioned/discussed anywhere. In 2008 Microsoft offered $45 Billion to acquire Yahoo. Then Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang rejected the offer, saying that the bid "substantially undervalues Yahoo." Microsoft raised the bid to 50 Billion, and it was yet again rejected. After that MS withdrew its bid. 8 years later, at 10% the original offer!

Re: Yahoo sold to US telecoms giant Verizon

#138

Post by tootie »

andy_ppp wrote: post #47

What the hell has Marissa Mayer been paid for? Everything about this smells like Yahoo! is being run by idiot MBAs with some spreadsheets somewhere totally misunderstanding that technology can empower people to do fantastic things including those working within Yahoo! - instead it's been hamstrung by each property not being held accountable to it's competitors effectively. I would have started competitors (startups)…

I'm guessing Mayer had a mandate to take a few moon shots to revive the brand knowing they were likely to fail, but at least had a chance of going viral. The upside was big, but the downside wasn't so bad because they were already so deep in the doldrums. I doubt they were worth much more than $5B when she joined. The ship had sailed a while ago.

Re: Yahoo sold to US telecoms giant Verizon

#139

Post by guelo »

sandstrom wrote: post #27
cs702 wrote: post #4

Less than the $5.7 billion Yahoo! paid in 1999 for Mark Cuban's Broadcast.com: http://money.cnn.com/1999/04/01/deals/yahoo/ Times -- and fortunes -- change.

Had to look it up, for curiosity: In April 1999, Yahoo! acquired the company for $5.7 billion (or over $10,000 per user) in stock. [...] The company had 570,000 users. -- Wikipedia These 570k users only listened to audio, seems like the biggest waste ever. Cuban got a bunch of (undeserved?) money and Yahoo lost the same amount. Feels like a pointless transaction.

If Yahoo had ever known what the fuck it was doing Podcasts would now be known as Ycasts or some such.

Re: Yahoo sold to US telecoms giant Verizon

#140

Post by phaedrix »

tehwebguy wrote: post #49

Verizon shouldn't be allowed to own any web properties. They inject a unique subscriber identifier into your HTTP requests unless you turn it off. http://www.verizonwireless.com/support/unique-identifier-hea...

Direct URL to opt-out: https://wbillpay.verizonwireless.com/vzw/secure/setPrivacy.a...
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