Yahoo's executive director, Jerry Yang, who on Wednesday (06/02) also said to study Microsoft acquisition proposal, by US$ 44.6 billion, you may have no other choice.

The second most popular site of search the world said it has a "wide variety" of alternatives besides accepting the offer of US$ 31 per action of Microsoft by the company he co-founded in 1994, Yang said yesterday in an e-mail distributed to 14,000 employees. He asked them to stay focused as Yahoo proceeds with their "transformation strategy". Yang, 39, can seek an alliance in search technology with his biggest competitor, Google, convince a site of network social like MySpace, a division of News Corp, forming a partnership or looking for another buyer, the analysts said.

These options will probably not succeed, said Andrew Frank, New York-based analyst at Gartner Research Institute. "They'll have difficulty finding another suitor who pays for this kind of agior", said Frank. "Chances are in favor of them giving in.", he said.

Yahoo investors, who saw the value of their shares fall by half in the two years preceding the proposal, may prefer to sell their shares to Microsoft rather than face Google as an independent company, according to analysts. Even if Yang opposes the deal, he and co-founder David Filo have less than 10% of Yahoo's ordinary shares.

Yang said he heard from friends, colleagues and people in the sector about the need to do what's best for the company and the shareholders. "I promise you the board will do this.", he said in the e-mail.

Finding a better offer or alliance can help Yahoo regain investor confidence in his recovery plan or attract a higher offer than Microsoft. Yahoo rejected Microsoft's advances last year.

Yahoo can also request competing offers from Microsoft, such as News Corp, group of Australian Rupert Murdoch, and Comcast.

Route: ITWeb

Source: XP Point