Now I hear from multiple sources. Many people believe AAPL needs YHOO to compete with GOOG and MSFT. AAPL might not really need YHOO but definitely does not want YHOO to be bought by MSFT or GOOG. It is like chess game. You want to block your opponents path. I believe GOOG cannot buy YHOO because of anti-trust issues. Disclaimer: I am all in YHOO and have strong belief that something good will happen very soon.
I think there will be a buyout, but I think you are too optimistic. YHOO is a 20Bn company with a dying US business and vibrant overseas business. No PE shop can afford YHOO on their own. GOOG can't buy them. Alibaba doesn't want all of YHOO (just portions of the overseas business) AAPL is a wild card, but if they wanted to, they could build a Yahoo website in 10 seconds and make it better. MSFT has what they wanted - the search deal. And Jerry Yang is a moron. The only way he can sell this company is to break it up in the auction process, which means 1 bid consisting of Alibaba for it's stake back, a few PE shops for the core business and a few PE shops for the Japan business. Yet he wants to prevent cross talk.