Microsoft fighting hard to win the yahoo bid

As a response to Yahoo!’s rejection, Microsoft has issued a statement and it seems as if MS is planning to bypass Yahoo’s board decision and make a hostile bid. Here’s an excerpt from their response:

“The Yahoo! response does not change our belief in the strategic and financial merits of our proposal. As we have said previously, Microsoft reserves the right to pursue all necessary steps to ensure that Yahoo!’s shareholders are provided with the opportunity to realize the value inherent in our proposal”

Yahoo!’s board must be breaking their heads right now, trying to figure out a way to evade Microsoft. On the other hand, Microsoft finds Yahoo!’s juicy assets to be tempting, and they are willing to put all their efforts to grab Yahoo! They’ll possibly be slapped with antitrust issues from Department of Justice, which means they still have a long way to go before stealing Yahoo!

Kapil Dev Vs BCCI once again

Former Indian cricketer Kapil Dev's stormy relationship with the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) continued with a fresh spate of allegations.

In the latest development, the former India captain has moved the Delhi High Court against the Board.

Kapil Dev filed an affidavit with the Delhi High Court on Tuesday, alleging that the BCCI deliberately amended the rules, after he joined the rebel Indian Cricket League (ICL), in order to stop his post-retirement benefits.

The legendary player had been receiving pension and other benefits since the year 2000, when the BCCI announced its pension scheme for retired cricketers.

However, after the inception of the ICL, the BCCI announced that anyone joining the rebel league would not be considered for any benefits.

yahoo planned to reject the microsoft's bid

Yahoo! plans to reject Microsoft's $44.6-billion takeover bid after concluding that the unsolicited offer undervalues the troubled Internet giant

Yahoo!'s board believes the offer of $31 per share also does not account for the risk that a deal could be blocked by regulators, the Wall Street Journal newspaper reported on Saturday, citing a source familiar with the situation.

The source said that the company is unlikely to consider any bid below $40 per share. Such a premium would increase the value of the takeover offer by $12 billion.

Yahoo!'s decision could set the stage for a showdown between Microsoft Corp, the world's largest software maker based in Redmond, Washington, and Google Inc. Google has already offered to help Yahoo! avoid a takeover and urged antitrust regulators to take a hard look at the proposed deal.

Google felt alarmed because a Microsoft-Yahoo! merger would create a formidable rival to its leadership position as Internet search and advertising leader.

Now, if Microsoft wants Yahoo! badly enough to take on Google, analysts say it could still go directly to the shareholders. Pursuing that route may require Microsoft to try to oust Yahoo!'s current 10-member board. Its other option is to up the ante.

Yahoo!, acknowledging Microsoft's offer, in a statement February 1 said they "will evaluate this proposal carefully and promptly in the context of Yahoo!'s strategic plans and pursue the best course of action to maximise long-term value for shareholders".

Despite falling revenues and stock value, Yahoo!, headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, retains one of the Internet's largest audiences and is one of the most powerful advertising vehicles.

Yahoo!'s board met Friday and reached the decision to reject the Microsoft offer after exploring a wide variety of alternatives during the past week. Yahoo! is expected to officially announce its decision Monday despite the fact that it does not have any other potential bidder willing to offer a higher price.

But by doing so, Yahoo! risks further alienating its shareholders who are already upset about management missteps that have led to five consecutive quarters of falling profits.

Indian Pacers shocked the Oz

Exactly 10 days ago, India's humiliation in the one-off Twenty20 here signalled ominous signs for an inexperienced side, in for another month of pain. Four matches into the Commonwealth Bank Series though, India returned to the MCG, and returned the humiliation to Australia.

Electing to bat, Australia folded up inside 44 overs, putting up 159, after having trumped World Cup finalists Sri Lanka in the previous game. The chief architect: 19-year-old Ishant Sharma, with figures of 4-38, completed a spell that perhaps went unfinished in the rain-hit tie against the world champions in Brisbane.

India's move to start with the right-arm pacers worked well. S Sreesanth struck in the very first over of play as Adam Gilchrist was adjudged leg before for a duck on a swinging overpitched delivery, which appeared to have taken a thick chunk of his bat.

The world champions continued to play they know best, with Matthew Hayden living dangerously and yet producing some furious strokes against an erratic pace attack, but perished trying to heave one too many off Ishant Sharma, leaving the Aussies two down for 37 in the sixth over.

The Ponting-Harbhajan rivalry seems old. Following the Perth Test, Ponting has found a new nemesis, Ishant. After a nighmarish second over, in which he gave away 18 runs along with two edges off no balls, he had Hayden, and then Ponting, producing a similar rising ball that climbed on the Australian captain, then left him to take the shoulder of the bat for nine.

Tag away

Got this tag from Ramesh thank you ever so much,

I’m passing the tag to: Vamsee, bala, arafat, Preetika

Dear Friends and co-bloggers lets play-game-tag to tag- “pass it to the front”Heres the Rules:* First copy and paste it.* Do not remove any content.* Just add One word related to your blogs.* If you don’t like the concept Pls! say no?* Our main goal is we are going to circulate our number of friends.* The more people join the “pass it to the front” the more links we generate.* Lastly write only one word “short” for your blogs…*Keep it simple and short,i know some of you have more than one blogs.* The color is only black,gray, or white plssss avoid using any Let me show you:

1.-Filipina,2.-Stories,3.-Abroad,4.-Husband,5.Gagiers, 6. Life 7. Everything, 8. Offer, 9. Moments, 10. Food Trip 11. World 12. suffering 13.china's autograph 14.Kiran's My voice
15. Boobu 16. rame
17. boopathi

Heavy snowfall in Kashmir; 3,000 stranded

Heavy snowfall in the Kashmir valley forced the closure of the Jammu-Srinagar National Highway, the only surface link between the valley and the rest of the country, for the second day on Tuesday, official sources said.

The 300-km highway, which was reopened only on Sunday after being closed for three days, had to be closed again in the evening following heavy snowfall and landslides at several places.

Nearly 3,000 people have been stranded by the closure. The locals of Nogum, Thater and Sukha villages near Jawahar tunnel have provided them accommodation, while the army provided food and other facilities.

The Border Roads Organisation has stepped up efforts to clear the arterial road of snow and landslides. But fresh snowing around the Jawahar tunnel is hampered their efforts, sources said.

A thick layer of snow covered the highway between Patnitop hill station and Banihal, the gateway to the valley, the sources added.

Early on Tuesday morning, a three-foot thick layer of snow covered the Patnitop resort, and vehicles on their way to Srinagar were stopped at Nagrota, about 12 km from Jammu, they said.

Windows Vista SP1 RTM Leaks!

Vista SP1 has been released to manufacturing, but due to specific related driver issues, Microsoft has decided not to release it via Windows Update until mid-march. This means Vista users still have to curiously wait for weeks to lay their hands on SP1. but Pirates already have already released it on various torrent tracker sites.

Usually, it doesn’t take long for Pirates to make their unofficial release, but this time Microsoft didn’t reveal the build number of the final version of SP1. That made it hard for Pirates to determine which build of Vista SP1 was the final version. Thanks to Paul Thurrott, who somehow got his hands over SP1 RTM version and confirmed that the build version is 6001.18000!

Standalone installer of Vista SP1 is available on ThePirateBay with sufficient seeders. You can find it by searching for “Vista SP1 6001.18000“. (Hint: It’s about 434.46 MB in size)

Of course, it’s illegal to download from torrent sites, but if you already own a copy of Vista, then it’s probably not-so-illegal to download SP1 through BitTorrent.