Microsoft made an official proposal to acquire Yahoo for approximately 44 Billion US Dollars (via Download Squad). The move was not that surprising because both Yahoo and Microsoft are currently in a fight to keep up with Google. The real question for us publishers will be if we will see any changes, positive ones that is, from that deal.

Will they finally open their US-Only publisher products to other publishers or will they simply join the products and keep everything as before. My personal opinion is that they are making a huge mistake in not offering these products to publishers world wide leaving that market for Google alone.

I especially can’t understand that they do not allow publishers with mainly US traffic into their programs, this does not make sense at all. If they want to compete they have to compete in the world wide market and forget about the idea that only the US-market, or even worse US-publishers, matter.

“Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT) today announced that it has made a proposal to the Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) Board of Directors to acquire all the outstanding shares of Yahoo! common stock for per share consideration of $31 representing a total equity value of approximately $44.6 billion. Microsoft’s proposal would allow the Yahoo! shareholders to elect to receive cash or a fixed number of shares of Microsoft common stock, with the total consideration payable to Yahoo! shareholders consisting of one-half cash and one-half Microsoft common stock. The offer represents a 62 percent premium above the closing price of Yahoo! common stock on Jan. 31, 2008.”