Microsoft, Yahoo를 놓아주다? - 제리양님의 미래는?

Microsoft said Saturday that it was abandoning its blockbuster bid to acquire Yahoo after it raised its offer by $5 billion but Yahoo rejected it as still too low.

결국에 기다린 줄다리기 싸움에 MS가 손을 든것일까요?

5월 5일에 발표될 것 같았던 bidding 결과물이 당초 예상과는 달리 하루 일찍 터져나왔습니다. 그동안 MS-Yahoo의 합병으로만 예상되었던 것과는 달리 제리양의 강한 거부 반응으로, 그리고 Yahoo내 수많은 루머에도 불구하고 MS는 Yahoo와의 합방(?)이 실패로, 물거품으로 돌아가는 역사적인 2연패를 낳고 말았습니다.

화려한 수식어로써의 표현과는 달리 MS의 반응은 냉담합니다.
<참조> 인수의 시작과 끝


Microsoft Withdraws Proposal to Acquire Yahoo!

MS 자체내 Press Relase에서는 "Withdraws"로 표현했고, Yahoo의 거절을 공식화 하는 보도자료를 내보였습니다. 이는 어쩌면 당연한 예측이라 믿어왔지만, 선택하닌 선택을 한 Yahoo의 생각도 궁금한 생각이 듭니다.

“We continue to believe that our proposed acquisition made sense for Microsoft, Yahoo! and the market as a whole. Our goal in pursuing a combination with Yahoo! was to provide greater choice and innovation in the marketplace and create real value for our respective stockholders and employees,” said Steve Ballmer, chief executive officer of Microsoft.

최선의 선택, 최고의 서비스, 최고의 파트너로써 Yahoo에 신중 이상의 제안을 했지만, 그렇게 되지 못했다고 하는 스티브 발머 MS CEO의 말대로 Yahoo와 MS간의 신경전 이상의 인수 싸움은 이렇게 물거품이 되어버렸습니다.

사실 Yahoo가 그동안의 거품빼기와 MS의 Yahoo를 인수하기 위한 물밑작업들도 수없이 다양하게 나왔을 것이라는 판단이상의 말들이 나왔었습니다. 하지만 제안의 포인트와 제안의 타이밍이 잘 들어맞지 않았던 것도 사실입니다. MS의 내부적인 입장도 아직은 시의적절하지 않다, 성급한 판단이었다, 되지도 않을 터무니 없는 제안이었다 라는 내부 이야기와는 달리 MS의 거액 베팅은 Yahoo의 진을 빼놓기에는 역부족이었습니다. 어쩌면 Yahoo 내부 직원들의 말대로 Yahoo Jerry Yang에게 선택의 기회를 주지 않으면서 몸값 올리기에 좋은 조건만 주었던 MS의 낚시질이 되지 않은 것이냐 하는 비판도 나왔었습니다.

Zdnet에서는 아래와 같은 평을 덧붙였습니다.

MS의 야후 인수는 지난 1월말 제안 시점에서부터 약 3개월만에 교섭이 최종 결렬됐다. MS는 적대적 인수에도 나서지 않을 것으로 전해졌다.

그러나 MS, 야후 모두 독자적인 능력으로 인터넷사업을 강화하기는 힘들다는 견해가 많아, 교섭 결렬 이후 두 회사를 중심으로 업계가 재편될 가능성이 높다는 분석이 제기되고 있다.

서로 Win-Win 할수 있는 좋은 타이밍을 놓쳤다는 판단이 아니었을까요? 그리고 현재 두 회사가 가지고 있는 비즈니스 모델(MS, Yahoo도 SNS에서 차세대 web service로 발전하고 있는 단계, 인터넷 광고와 미디어로써의 사업재편, information Share etc.)이외의 그 어떠한 사업으로의 진보를 하기에는 혼자만의 힘으로 해쳐나가기 힘들다는 판단 등, 다양한 시각에서 결론을 내린상태 일수도 있습니다.

제리양의 욕심이 과했다는 MS 내부의 판단과 언론인들의 판단, 그리고 Yahoo 주주들의 이번 시기를 놓친 아쉬움, 사업영역에 대한 자존심 싸움, MS-Yahoo가 서로의 구애열기에 타이밍을 놓쳐버렸다는 판단 등등 수많은 결론에도 이제는 장미빛 싸움이 아쉬움의 이별로 남게 되었습니다.

사랑도 그러하듯, 연애 공식에도 그러하듯, 사회 생활의 여러가지 제안에서도 그러하듯, 타이밍의 부재가 이번 협상의 큰 "결렬의 핵심"이 아니었을까 생각되네요.

마지막으로 뉴욕타임즈(NewYork Times)의 공식 기사와 아래에 MS 스티브 발머의 Yahoo 제리양에게 보낸 서문을 참조글로 남깁니다.

NewYork Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/04/technology/04soft.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

Microsoft pushed back, saying it would pay no more than $33 a share. The talks culminated in a final meeting on Saturday in which Mr. Yang flew to Seattle to meet with Mr. Ballmer. Mr. Ballmer stuck to his $33 price, and Mr. Yang said Yahoo’s board would accept $37 a share. Hours later, Mr. Ballmer sent Mr. Yang the letter saying Microsoft would withdraw its bid.

MS Steve Ballmer Letter

Below is the text of the letter from Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to Yahoo! CEO Jerry Yang.

May 3, 2008

Mr. Jerry Yang
CEO and Chief Yahoo
Yahoo! Inc.
701 First Avenue
Sunnyvale, CA 94089

Dear Jerry:

After over three months, we have reached the conclusion of the process regarding a possible combination of Microsoft and Yahoo!.

I first want to convey my personal thanks to you, your management team, and Yahoo!’s Board of Directors for your consideration of our proposal. I appreciate the time and attention all of you have given to this matter, and I especially appreciate the time that you have invested personally. I feel that our discussions this week have been particularly useful, providing me for the first time with real clarity on what is and is not possible.

I am disappointed that Yahoo! has not moved towards accepting our offer. I first called you with our offer on January 31 because I believed that a combination of our two companies would have created real value for our respective shareholders and would have provided consumers, publishers, and advertisers with greater innovation and choice in the marketplace. Our decision to offer a 62 percent premium at that time reflected the strength of these convictions.

In our conversations this week, we conveyed our willingness to raise our offer to $33.00 per share, reflecting again our belief in this collective opportunity. This increase would have added approximately another $5 billion of value to your shareholders, compared to the current value of our initial offer. It also would have reflected a premium of over 70 percent compared to the price at which your stock closed on January 31. Yet it has proven insufficient, as your final position insisted on Microsoft paying yet another $5 billion or more, or at least another $4 per share above our $33.00 offer.

Also, after giving this week’s conversations further thought, it is clear to me that it is not sensible for Microsoft to take our offer directly to your shareholders. This approach would necessarily involve a protracted proxy contest and eventually an exchange offer. Our discussions with you have led us to conclude that, in the interim, you would take steps that would make Yahoo! undesirable as an acquisition for Microsoft.

We regard with particular concern your apparent planning to respond to a “hostile” bid by pursuing a new arrangement that would involve or lead to the outsourcing to Google of key paid Internet search terms offered by Yahoo! today. In our view, such an arrangement with the dominant search provider would make an acquisition of Yahoo! undesirable to us for a number of reasons:

•	First, it would fundamentally undermine Yahoo!’s own strategy and long-term viability by encouraging advertisers to use Google as opposed to your Panama paid search system. This would also fragment your search advertising and display advertising strategies and the ecosystem surrounding them. This would undermine the reliance on your display advertising business to fuel future growth.
•	Given this, it would impair Yahoo’s ability to retain the talented engineers working on advertising systems that are important to our interest in a combination of our companies.
•	In addition, it would raise a host of regulatory and legal problems that no acquirer, including Microsoft, would want to inherit. Among other things, this would consolidate market share with the already-dominant paid search provider in a manner that would reduce competition and choice in the marketplace.
•	This would also effectively enable Google to set the prices for key search terms on both their and your search platforms and, in the process, raise prices charged to advertisers on Yahoo. In addition to whatever resulting legal problems, this seems unwise from a business perspective unless in fact one simply wishes to use this as a vehicle to exit the paid search business in favor of Google.
•	It could foreclose any chance of a combination with any other search provider that is not already relying on Google’s search services.

Accordingly, your apparent plan to pursue such an arrangement in the event of a proxy contest or exchange offer leads me to the firm decision not to pursue such a path. Instead, I hereby formally withdraw Microsoft’s proposal to acquire Yahoo!.

We will move forward and will continue to innovate and grow our business at Microsoft with the talented team we have in place and potentially through strategic transactions with other business partners.

I still believe even today that our offer remains the only alternative put forward that provides your stockholders full and fair value for their shares. By failing to reach an agreement with us, you and your stockholders have left significant value on the table.

But clearly a deal is not to be.

Thank you again for the time we have spent together discussing this.

Sincerely yours,

Steven A. Ballmer
Chief Executive Officer
Microsoft Corporation

협상 카리스마(양장본) 상세보기

전성철 지음 | 아이지엠세계경영연구원 펴냄

협상 테이블에서 명심해야 할 협상의 10계명! 『협상 카리스마』는 단순하고 강력한 협상의 정수를 소개하는 책으로, 상대방의 생각을 바꾸기 위한 기본적인 접근법과 이를 실천하는 데 도움이 되는 기법을 10가지로 정리하였다. 국제 변호사이자 IGM 세계경영연구원 이사장인 저자가 국내의 수많
은 CEO들을 대상으로 교육했던 'IGM 협상 스쿨' 교육의 정수를 맛볼 수 있다. 본문은 총 2부로 나뉘어져 있다. 먼저 1부에서는 '