Yahoo! seems to have come up with the ultimate response to Microsoft's heavy-handed attempts to purchase the internet portal. The
Wall Street Journal reports that Yahoo! is in talks with Download Squad's parent company AOL over plans to merge the two companies' internet operations.
If the deal goes through, the two companies would combine their web and internet based services. AOL's old school ISP services would not be part of the deal, which would value AOL at $10 billion. Yahoo! would reportedly use some of the revenue from a merger with Time Warner/AOL to buy back a whole bunch of stock which woudl help the company fend off any further unwanted advances from Microsoft.
The upshot of a possible partnership or merger is that people will stop picking on AOL for
copying Yahoo!'s homepage design. The downside is that a merged company could conceivably be called AOwho? OK, probably not. We for one welcome our new Yahoo! overlords anyway.
译文:
美国在线和雅虎会合并互联网业务？
看上去雅虎终于对微软收购其互联网门户的重拳出击有了回应。《华尔街日报》报道雅虎！正和Download Squad（下载队）的总公司美国在线商讨合并两公司的互联网业务。
如果该交易被通过，两公司将结合他们的网站和互联网服务。去除老式的提供互联网服务，美国在线的价值有十亿美金。据传说，雅虎将会用从与时代华纳/美国在线合并所得的部分收入购回所有股份，从而帮自己避免微软将来对自己不必要的接近。
人们对美国在线的挑刺是因为其抄袭雅虎首页的设计，这次可能发生的合伙或是合并将会为此画上句号。坏处是可以想象合并后的公司会被命名为“奥虎”？好吧，大概不会。不管如何，我们欢迎网络霸主新雅虎！