Microsoft and Yahoo: The Standoff Continues (For Now)

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's weekend deadline for Yahoo to respond to his company's takeover offer has come and gone with no comment out of either company, no new SEC filings (as of this writing), and an eerie quiet out in takeover land.

But that quiet might not last, at least for the rest of the industry.

Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen has written a lengthy piece, based on questions and answers with a couple of experts, on what options are left for both Microsoft and Yahoo. His most intriguing conclusion: No matter what happens between those two companies, the days of hostile takeovers in the technology space are just beginning:

We are learning that hostile takeovers have arrived in our industry. This is the second major hostile takeover so far -- the other was Oracle's takeover of Peoplesoft -- but there will be more.

This is significant because historically hostile takeovers practically never happened in technology. Potential hostile acquirors assumed that hostile takeovers wouldn't work because the target company's employees would bail and the target company's business would collapse.

It turns out that as technology companies become larger and more mature, acquirors are becoming increasingly convinced that neither of these assumptions hold. . .

My bet is that hostile takeovers, particularly of larger and more mature companies, are going to become increasingly common in our industry.

The excitement may be just beginning.

If large mergers and acquisitions can prove distracting, how about large hostile takeovers? Andreessen is correct, in that there are really no templates for big hostile takeovers in technology. But those who can recall the hotly contested Hewlett-Packard-Compaq merger earlier this decade might also recall how steep a price HP paid in just distractions alone. While Ballmer may not care what Andreessen, his former rival, may have to say, he may want to drop and dime and give Carly Fiorina, HP's former CEO, a quick call.

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