Why Can't Microsoft Close the Deal?

TechCrunch has another Xobni rumor this morning. This one says that Xobni walked away from a deal to sell itself to Microsoft (MSFT):

But the deeper that Xobni got into the discussions, the less comfortable it felt about its eventual fate inside the Microsoft machine. The fear was that Xobni would end up nothing more than a feature of Outlook. Microsoft wanted the entire team to move up to Redmond, and was vague in its answers about what it had planned for that team, or the product. In the end, the body language just wasn’t there.

This rings true to me because I've seen this happen before. Microsoft has trouble closing deals because when developers and entrepreneurs see their future inside of Microsoft, it often isn't pretty.

It goes to the bigger question of the Yahoo! fight. Henry Blodget says Microsoft is willing to up its offer a couple bucks per share. But here's something to chew on. If this was Google trying to buy Yahoo! (an impossibility for anti-trust reasons), this deal would have been done a long time ago.

Microsoft messed with the technology industry for a decade and its image in the industry has never really recovered. When Google talks about "do no evil," who do you think they were talking about?

Comments

[InvestBaboo]

Very disappointing what has happened with Microsoft here. They have taken a proud company (Yahoo) and monkeyed around with it needlessly without having the courage to do the deal and get it over with. What a bunch of nitwits?! I regret that I bought any MSFT stock and am waiting for an opportune time to dump it. The days of greatness are over for MSFT.

2008 May 01 08:15 AM

[Philly Jim]

GOOG is the invisible giant in the deal room we aren't hearing about.

2008 May 01 10:07 AM

[buyforeclosures]

Msft is a good company that can take advantage of the Billions that are going to be invested in online ads over the coming decades but it has to sweeten the yhoo deal as to avoid proxy... some say yhoo wants too much... but if your buying real estate sometimes you pay more for a property if you see big upside 4 5- years dowm the road...I say get the deal done and start integrating

2008 May 01 10:08 AM

[bato sa bato]

Amen to that buyforclosures !!! And like the lyrics to a song "don't it always seem togo that you don't know what you've got till it's gone".

2008 May 01 11:05 AM

[steveballmer]

I'm just taking my time!

2008 May 03 11:26 PM