News just in: Microsoft is to purchase Yahoo at $31 per share. This would value the company at $44.6bn or £22.4bn. Shares in Yahoo! currently stand at $19.18. The deal will need to be approved by regulators and shareholders. You can keep track of the share price on Google Finance:

YHOO - Yahoo! Inc. - Google Finance

This has been officially announced in a press release by Microsoft which you can read on Search Engine Land:

Microsoft Makes $45 Billion Bid To Buy Yahoo

Reuters reported this morning that according to a "source", Yahoo might re-consider an alliance with Google instead.

Google has finally responded to Microsoft's bid on Yahoo via a statement on its official blog which I would encourage anyone who is interested to read.

Oh purlease! Awwwww Poor Google. It is the same type of viral which Virgin Media did on Sky when they started charging more for it's own channels on the Virgin platform. They are trying to make other people look like the bad guy - Google can't say jack after it's acquisition of DoubleClick.

I really doubt the Microsoft! merger will do little to dent Google's plans. I think it will make it a lot harder for smaller engines like Ask, Altavista (powered by Yahoo), Infospace (powered by Yahoo?) and country specific engines like Baidu, Ilse and Yandex.

It will be given a firm no by the FCC and EU if Google decides to step in.

I think that Yahoo would be perfect for an enterprise IT solutions company such as IBM, Oracle and Sun. Google and Microsoft have released enterprise search clients or hardware, I am sure Yahoo is the only one missing. For many companies having the exclusive rights to the "Powered by Yahoo!" brand on it's software and hardware could be very valuable.

I think IBM would be a perfect match for Yahoo - Their management and innovation could be what Yahoo needs.

Officially, Microsoft has made an offer to buy Yahoo. This does not translate to them actually buying Yahoo! as implied. Its up to the board to agree to the offer after which it goes to their shareholders.

Yahoo! is an excellent company which would have a boatload of synergies with Microsoft and would help in providing a better more efficient ROI to advertisers than they currently get on Yahoo! IMHO. The most exciting aspect is within the display ad market where effectively the merger would make it VERY hard for Google to penetrate that market, and with its recent purchase of aQuantive which includes Atlas, Microsoft is all set to monetize this field.

I don't think IBM is a good fit for Yahoo! asides from their cultural compatibility which is a big issue with Microsoft/Yahoo. IBM and Yahoo! already collaborate in the enterprise search space but none of Yahoo!'s other services would be better suited at IBM than Microsoft.

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Its obvious to get rejected kinda bid..which seems too low. What Yahoo is doing is just trying to get them to raise their bid. It was almost expected for them to reject this offer. Yahoo has to get the best deal for their shareholders. Microsoft can probably afford a better offer. Forty-four billion was only about 15 percent of Microsoft's market cap.

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