More Microhoo Jerking Around

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What a soap opera.  Aren’t you getting tired of hearing about it?  And which is worse, the drama between the players themselves (counting Carl Icahn as a player), or all the hangers on and armchair quarterbacks?

Michael Arrington is mad.  Boy, do you remember those old TV commercials?

“Hi.  My name is Eddie Childs and I’m mad.”  (Amazingly, could find no links on the Internet–short memory!)

Michael thinks Microsoft is being a bad actor now for pulling its bid “just as Yahoo was about to accept.”

Come again?  Just about to accept?  How the heck could he possibly know whether they were just about to accept?  To most of the rest of us it looks like Jerry Yang sacrificed billions in shareholder value just to avoid it.  If Yahoo was all about accepting it, why then is there such a mass exodus on from the Big Purple ‘Hoo?  Clearly the internal Yahoo is not so confident about that acceptance.

But I’m sure Michael, with all of his connections, feels like he has some kind of inside track because somebody told him something.  Maybe he is right.  Maybe Microsoft is playing nasty Machiavellian games to get the milk for free without paying for the cow.

Now he just wants Microsoft to put up or shut up and quit trying to help Icahn take over the board.  Just one problem Michael, from their perspective they already did that dance and Yahoo drank every bottle of poison in site just to make sure they were completely unpalatable.  Microsoft wants to make sure they’re dealing with a group that actually does want to sell, as the current group has made it painfully expensively clear to everyone they did not.

Obviously not everyone takes this completely seriously.  I got a real chuckle out of Larry Dignan’s list of 10 things Arrington can do in protest.  Larry is pointing out in a humorous way that the actual power Techcrunch has to stand in the way of what’s happening (“I won’t stand by quietly while Microsoft destroys what’s left of Yahoo just because it can.”) is pretty limited.  Are these guys serious or just trying to get attention?

Heck, I’m not even sure if I’m serious, but let’s face it:  None of us has much control over what’s going to happen.  It isn’t even clear the players themselves are in control.  They’re bouncing around the ring grunting and struggling like 3 Sumo wrestlers, each trying to gain a decisive hold on the others.  Watch the spectacle if you must, but please, don’t try to step into the ring.  It just eggs the Sumos on.

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