Filings in the Microsoft/Yahoo/Google Triangle

By Michelle Leder
Feb. 4, 2008

Now that the Super Bowl is over – and being a New Yorker, I have to put in a plug for the Giants – you may find yourself wondering what sport to next turn your attention to. Well, look no further than the Microsoft/Yahoo/Google love triangle for a bit of mid-winter entertainment. OK, maybe love triangle is the wrong word. But the SEC filings that are flying fast and furious have all the elements of the type of juicy canoodling normally found on Page Six.

When Microsoft announced on Feb. 1 that it was waging a $44.6 billion hostile bid for Yahoo, it quickly followed up with this filing – an email from Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer that went out to all Microsoft employees. “This announcement represents a big opportunity for Microsoft, and is the next major milestone in our companywide transformation to embrace online services, search, and advertising,” he wrote. Also finding their way into the filings was the transcript from a Microsoft employee webcast, a slideshow and a conference call. And that was just Friday’s crop of filings from just one company. There was an additional call transcript and another presentation in Monday’s filings.

Over at Yahoo, there was a two sentence press release and a copy of this email sent by Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang and newly minted non-executive Chairman Roy Bostock, which encouraged Yahoo employees not to “let any of the noise we’re hearing around this situation distract us from our core mission. It’s critical that we continue to focus on running our business, executing our strategy and delivering value to all of our users, advertisers and publishers.”

While Google’s SEC filings had not yet mentioned the potential transaction as of Monday, the company’s chief legal officer posted his thoughts about the deal on Sunday, creating a whole new wave of coverage that’s likely to lead to yet another round of filings. “So Microsoft's hostile bid for Yahoo raises troubling questions. This is about more than simply a financial transaction, one company taking over another. It's about preserving the underlying principles of the Internet: openness and innovation,” David Drummond wrote on the official Google blog on Sunday.

A few years ago, many of these emails and other materials would have required an inside source. And while that still might be the quickest way to get them, you can count on them turning up in the filings as well. So stay tuned. There’s clearly more of this ahead. Especially if the fight for Yahoo gets uglier.

Copyright © 2008 Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism