Mathew Ingram explains that there are things strnger than fiction - like the long running MS/Yahoo saga:

I think even infamous zombie-movie director George Romero would have felt outmatched by the ongoing Yahoo takeover saga, which has gone beyond drama into farce, then back into drama, then taken a right turn into the bizarre, and now threatens to become The Takeover/Merger That Wouldn’t Die. Microsoft wants to buy it, then it doesn’t, then Carl Icahn gets his fingers in the pie, then Microsoft wants to buy just the search operation, then it wants the whole company again, then it wants to team up with someone like News Corp. in order to dismantle the company — and meanwhile, Yahoo is talking with everyone but your Aunt Sally about a merger to thwart Microsoft.

So far, MS has gotten lucky - they've been thwarted in their attempts to grab Yahoo. If they manage to succeed, they'll end up sinking like a rock, as the internecine battles between technologists and middle managers will get very, very ugly. The end result? Whatever the summation of search penetration MS and Yahoo have now separately, it will be lower (possibly lower than either one) 18 months after any buy.

Technorati Tags: microwho