DEAL BETWEEN YAHOO AND MICROSOFT

July 28, 2009 Microsoft offered to buy all of Yahoo for $40 billion. Last summer, Microsoft offered to buy Yahoo's search business for $1 billion. 2months ago, Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz said it would take "a boatload" of money to get her to sell Yahoo's search business to Microsoft. Two weeks ago, a report suggested that the finally-impending deal price tag would be "several billion." And now the deal is done Bing will become the default search engine on Yahoo, creating a search player with close to 30% market share of search queries, compared with Google's 65%, according to ComScore data. Yahoo is likely to take on exclusive representation of Bing inventory to eliminate channel conflict and complexity for advertisers, but not before both sides unwind the thousands of advertiser relationships and proprietary systems through which many large advertisers buy search ads. Microsoft's AdCenter is expected to be the sales-technology platform. Deal leads Yahoo is likely to take on exclusive representation of Bing inventory to eliminate channel conflict and complexity for advertisers, but not before both sides unwind the thousands of advertiser relationships and proprietary systems through which many large advertisers buy search ads. Microsoft's AdCenter is expected to be the sales-technology platform. Through this agreement with Yahoo!, we will create more innovation in search, better value for advertisers and real consumer choice in a market currently dominated by a single company, said Ballmer. Success in search requires both innovation and scale. With our new Bing search platform, weve created breakthrough innovation and features. This agreement with Yahoo! will provide the scale we need to deliver even more rapid advances in relevancy and usefulness. Microsoft and Yahoo! know theres so much more that search could be. This agreement gives us the scale and resources to create the future of search. This deal fits the long-term strategic direction of Yahoo! to remain the worlds leading online media company and Carol Bartz has the full and unanimous support of the Yahoo! Board behind this deal, said Roy Bostock, chairman, Yahoo! Inc. This is a significant opportunity for us. Microsoft is an industry innovator in search and it is a great opportunity for us to focus our investments in other areas critical to our future According to the Wall Street Journal, Yahoo and Google are closer than ever to forming a deal that would see Yahoo increase its revenue by as much as $1 billion per year and throw a wrench into Microsoft's plans post-acquisition. And while the Journal is reporting that the Yahoo-Google deal may have a stipulation in it that says it can be dissolved if Microsoft acquires the company, I'm not so quick to believe that any deal between the company won't put the hooks in Microsoft. Microsoft on the Google-Yahoo! Deal: The Future of Internet Advertising, Consumer Choice and Competition Oct. 1, 2008 Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith testified before Congress about the companys concerns with the proposed Google-Yahoo Internet search deal as it relates to consumer choice and privacy, as well as pricing for online advertisers and content creators.

Press Releases
Microsoft Voices Concerns about Google-Yahoo Deals Implications For Competition, Internet Innovation, Consumer Choice and Privacy (July 15, 2008)

ON MOBILE OVER INFOSYS

OnMobile, which was spun off from Infosys to build and deploy software solutions for the wireless and Internet industry, would use the investment to strengthen its international presence and fund more research and development activities, said the Chief Executive Officer, Mr Arvind Rao. It currently has an R&D team of 380 engineers in Bangalore, which it plans to increase to about 450 by the year-end, he said. OnMobile currently has a presence in Australia, Indonesia and Singapore and plans to go global by tapping West Asia, the UK, Europe and US markets among others by 2007end It provides telecom value-added services, mobile content distribution, interactive media portals, and M-commerce solutions. The company, which has been growing over 70-80 per cent a year, has been profitable for a while. It ONMobile had raised $18 million from early stage investor Argo Global Capital in the first round. Founders including Mr Rao and employees own a 40-45 per cent stake in the company, while Infosys Technologies owns about 15 per cent. Bangalore, Sept 26: Infosys investments in start-ups could be raking in the moolah. Infosys Technologies, which incubated mobile value-added services (VAS) player OnMobile with a below m investment, is now witnessing its 12-13 pc stake in the company valued at around mn. Interestingly, Infosys had already made provisions for its investment in the company along with other similar investments it made in the past. However, Infosys is not divesting its stake in this round of funding even though its holding was diluted in the earlier round Infosys' OnMobile holding is valued significantly higher than its stake in Yantra Corporation at the time of its sale. Infosys sold 16% in Yantra, a provider of distributed order management and supply chain fulfilment solutions, to an SBC Communications arm for Rs 45 crore. OnMobile will use the latest round of funding for expanding the company's operations currently estimated at -50 million. OnMobile, which has been in the market for funds for sometime now, will announce the closure soon OnMobiles holding company OnMobile Systems Inc has a 61% stake in it. Incubated out of Infosys, OnMobile is Indias largest VAS player and now ready for a life of its own. Besides the landlord, also delighted are a clutch of private-equity investors who have seen the valuation of their holding rise by over 15 times in the past seven years. In 2000 when OnMobile raised $13 million in round one of funding, it was valued at under $40 million. Today, at the upper end of its Rs 425-450 band at which 11 million shares each are offered at, the companys valuation would stand at over $ 600 million. With OnMobiles listing, Indian VAS players would come of age and have a valuation benchmark. OnMobiles IPO includes about 9 million fresh shares and 2 million offer of sale from existing shareholders. Yantra, another of Infosys incubation company where it held a 16% stake, was sold in 2004 at a valuation of $170 million. Subsequently OnMobile underwent two more rounds of funding, raising little under $50 million

MICROSOFT AND FACEBOK DEAL

Oct. 24, 2007 Facebook and Microsoft Corp. today announced that the two companies would expand their advertising partnership and that Microsoft will take a $240 million equity stake in Facebooks next round of financing at a $15 billion valuation. Under the expanded strategic allianc e, Microsoft will be the exclusive third-party advertising platform partner for Facebook, and will begin to sell advertising for Facebook internationally in addition to the United States. This relationship will allow Facebook to continue to innovate and grow as a technology company, as well as bring relevant advertising to Facebooks nearly 50 million active users . Facebook Founded in February 2004, Facebook is a social utility that helps people communicate more efficiently with their friends, family and coworkers. The company develops technologies that facilitate the sharing of information through the social graph, the digital mapping of peoples real -world social connections. Anyone can sign up for Facebook and interact with the people they know in a trusted environment. Facebook is a part of millions of peoples lives and half of the users return daily. Facebook is a privately-held company and is headquartered in Palo Alto, Calif. The amount invested is lower than expectations, which were around $500M. Microsoft's new deal with Facebook is all about bolstering their existing advertising arrangement - Microsoft will now sell Facebook's international display ads, in addition to the banner ads it already sells on the US site. However this deal leaves room for Facebook to run its own advertising network, which we have beendiscussing on Read/WriteWeb. Facebook's ad system will likely use social profiling to target ads, given the wealth of such data that Facebook has. Facebook.com was the ninth most visited website (as ranked by Hitwise) in the U.S. receiving .96% of all Internet visits for the week ending 10/20/07. U.S. traffic to Facebook.com has increased 102% YOY comparing the week ending 10/20/07 versus 10/21/06. Among a custom category of leading social networking websites, Facebook.com received 15% of U.S. visits for the week ending 10/20/07. That was second most among social networking websites behind MySpace.com, who received 76%. Windows Live Spaces received .40% for the same week. Facebook.com received '9.90%' of its U.S. traffic from Search Engines for the week ending 10/20/2007. Of that traffic, MSN Search and Live Search combined for .46% to Facebook.com last week. Google sent 6.82% percent of U.S. traffic while Yahoo! Search send 1.34% of traffic for the week ending 10/20/07.