[sealedidentity]

That was a well thought out post. In addition to my previous comment posted here, http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=217636 I forgot to mention that Yahoo is quite big in the non US, BRIC (Brazil Russia India China) market. I am not sure finance types really understand what drives techies, creation and creativity as the root of one's personality and validation. While I'm as much for making a buck as the next person I'd rather do it while creating something.

MSFT stock has been flat for half a decade now while Yahoo's been going up slowly in the same time. If their Panama system does well, maybe they can get a piece of the Adwords pie.

I think Ballmer's been a disaster for Microsoft, no CEO has had such flat ratings on stock for about a decade and still kept his job. Though stockholders might think Jerry's doing a lousy job only 16% of their stocks would've seen the MSFT valuation of $35. Which translates to about 12% gains overall or a $2.4 increase in share value from when MSFT's interest in Yahoo went public. Even if they dump their stock now, they're coming out on tops. So I give props to Yahoo for aligning with Google in the meanwhile and safeguarding their research and development teams and work.