I'm thinking about this quite a bit. Kind of fascinating. A lot never made sense about this deal in the first place. First being, why would MSFT pay an absurdly high multiple that would never pay for the cost of the acquisition over time ? Stepping back, it looks clearer. 1) Microsoft offers to buy, knowing the Yang won't take it. Anti-microsoft sentiment and Silicon Valley hubris to become a multi-cycle player makes it a safe bet to force Yahoo into enacting a poison pill. 2) Poison pill = outsource search to goog. 3) Outsourcing search to goog means there is less value to the core yahoo business. He just hollowed out a core component of yahoo's revenues (search) ... I'm sure goog will find a way to squeeze yahoo's revenue streams down the road. They are weakened, not owning the entirety of their business organically. 4) With google clearly becoming the monopoly, Ballmer & co can now arguably get some good anti-trust legislation going to get back in the game. Nothing spent.