Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) is in talks with Facebook about making an investment, according to the Wall Street Journal. (subscription required).
The deal would value the hugely popular social networking site at $10 billion, the paper said, citing sources familiar with the talks.
If this happens, it would be huge for Microsoft, giving it the competitive boost it so desperately needs against Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) and Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO). The key word is "if" because Facebook's founder Mark Zuckerberg has dangled his company in front of big Internet and media companies before and not done any deals.
Who knows if this time it's for real?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
9-24-2007 @ 4:26PM
dalton cooper said...
These markets are too fast and furious for me....from 2 billion a few months ago to 10 billion now.....how much farther can it go?
9-24-2007 @ 5:07PM
Seth said...
Microsoft and Google are in a struggle to the death, and you could probably put Yahoo! in there also. An article in the WSJ this morning was on how Microsoft is using backroom connections to try and pressure ad firms, Time Warner, and AT&T to not support the Google-DoubleClick deal. I did some research on this and found these great maps from NewsVisual http://www.newsvisual.com/newsvisual/2007/09/microsoft-ties-.html showing the connections Microsoft shares with Time Warner and AT&T. There may be some truth in this story after all. If this works out for Microsoft there is a chance maybe they could grab back some of the online ad market they lost to Google.