Cramer on BloggingStocks: Murdoch cedes Yahoo! to Microsoft

Posted Feb 5th 2008 9:05AM by Jim Cramer
Filed under: Deals, Google (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT), Yahoo! (YHOO), XM Satellite Radio (XMSR), Sirius Satellite Radio (SIRI), Market Matters, Alcatel-LucentADS (ALU), Cramer on BloggingStocks

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says the News Corp. chief loves online, which makes his tone toward Yahoo! telling.

Does someone want to tell me the bull case for Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) (Cramer's Take) up here? After listening to Rupert Murdoch last night, who never met a dot-com he didn't like, I have to say that Yahoo is Microsoft's (NASDAQ: MSFT) (Cramer's Take).

Have no doubt that Congress will look at the efforts of Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) (Cramer's Take) to stop the deal and immediately recognize that this is about monopoly, with Google playing the role of Microsoft this time around.

I also find it hard to believe that anyone takes Yahoo! management seriously. Other than Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU) (Cramer's Take), I am hard-pressed to find a company that has done more to squander advantage, and in this case, Yahoo! had far more going for it than ALU from the start.

Believe me, if this company had any hope of getting to the $20s on its own, I would feel differently. But there is no indication whatsoever that the business was doing anything but deteriorating by the month, and this quarter was particularly bad despite Panama -- remember that? -- and despite a true migration from print to the Web at an unfathomable level.

Sometimes in capitalism, a company with a great franchise falters and it is worth giving it the benefit of the doubt. But Yahoo! has been faltering for two years now since it rallied at the end of December of 2005, when there were high hopes for its new engine and business online was smoking. If I were Yahoo! right now, I would be grateful for the chance to at last reward shareholders.

But no, they think they deserve more.

They are dreaming. This deal will get done, and it will get done a lot more quickly than the merger between Sirius (NASDAQ: SIRI) (Cramer's Take) and XM (NASDAQ: XMSR) (Cramer's Take), if that ever has a chance of being completed.

Random musings: Congrats to all involved in the relaunch of our flagship site, which has finally evolved past my initial take of what TheStreet.com should look like.

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Jim Cramer is a director and co-founder of TheStreet.com. He contributes daily market commentary for TheStreet.com's sites and serves as an adviser to the company's CEO.At the time of publication, Cramer had no positions in stocks mentioned.

Tags: alu, featured, goog, Google, jim cramer, JimCramer, Microsoft, msft, siri, xmsr, Yahoo!, yhoo

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

2-05-2008 @ 12:26PM

roxx said...

Yhoo is lucky that Msft doesnt decide to CUT their offer or walk away. They re dead ducks without them. No one else wants them. That should tell you something. No wonder they were cut.

2-18-2008 @ 2:08PM

Brian Hackbarth said...

Re: Alcatel-Lucent ALU

Mr. Cramer,
Despite the currently poor management and disappointing 4th QT and negative guidence from the company for the 1st QT of 08'. And the negative speculation from experts & analysts. Isn't ALU starting to look like a a good play now being so artificialy undervalued? It seems to me they are attempting to depress the stocks value intentionally?? I think getting in on this would be so fare ahead of the curve, it could be a huge ROI in the 12 months? But I'd like your opinion before I buy. thanks.