Yahoo accepts negotiations to merge with Microsoft

Earlier this week leaders Microsoft and Yahoo secretly met to discuss a $ 44.6 billion merger contract proposed by the "software giant".

Citing a source close to the event, the AP said the meeting was held March 10 at a location near Yahoo's headquarters in Sunnyvale (USA). This is the first official meeting between the two companies to discuss the merger issue.

The meeting was fully attended by senior executives from Microsoft and Yahoo, but seemed to lack the executives Steve Ballmer and Jerry Yang. In addition, no bank was invited to attend the meeting this time.

The Wall Street Journal said the meeting brought an opportunity for Microsoft to present to Yahoo the details of the facility that led the company to make a proposal to unify the two firms six weeks ago. At that time, Microsoft proposed to buy Yahoo for $ 44.6 billion. Yahoo's leader said the refusal on the grounds that the value of the company was much higher than that.

Meanwhile, Microsoft still insists that the proposed price is perfectly reasonable and threatens to take stronger measures if Yahoo does not sit at the negotiating table. But some Yahoo sources have secretly negotiated with Google, News Corp, MySpace and AOL about the possibility of a merger.

However, Yahoo's acceptance of the meeting with Microsoft has led to the development in a different direction. Analysts said this was the first step towards more serious negotiations on the possibility of merging. The result may be a contract that benefits both Microsoft and Yahoo.

At the same time, News Corp and AOL also officially denied that they were also intending to pursue Yahoo. AOL recently spent 850 million to buy Bebo online virtual social network. Meanwhile, News Corp executive chairman Rupert Murdoch said the company did not intend to compete with Microsoft in the Yahoo deal because the contract value was too large.

Most analysts suggest that Microsoft will increase contract value to achieve the ultimate goal of acquiring with Yahoo.However, there are also many views that Microsoft will "falter" when witnessed the first quarter revenue report of Yahoo this year.In the past two years, Yahoo's revenue has dropped dramatically.