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In a recently published open letter to the Yahoo! Board of Directors, Carl Icahn makes things pretty clear, he wants to dump the entire current board. He is not very happy with the way the current board acted with Microsoft’s offer of $47.5 billion and feels the $33 per share price was a “superior alternative” to what Yahoo could do on their own.

“It is clear to me that the board of directors of Yahoo has acted irrationally and lost the faith of shareholders and Microsoft.”

In a long and thorough letter he present a list of 10 members that he feels should replace the current board. The new list includes not only himself, but also Lucian A. Bebchuk, Frank J. Biondi, Jr., John H. Chapple, Mark Cuban, Adam Dell, Keith A. Meister, Edward H. Meyer, Brian S. Posner and Robert K. Shaye.

While Carl Icahn is going after this with full force, even if he were to get the newly proposed board in order, there has not been any word from the Microsoft camp as to whether or not they would come back and continue the deal.

Keep reading to check out the full letter…

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Yesterday, the mighty (or once mighty) Jerry Yang, CEO of Yahoo! wrote a blog post entitled, “Ok, so now what?”.  The post was what you would think a CEO might write about his actions under the Microsoft microscope and hopes for a bright future.  One of the fun thing about blogging is the response it invites.  The response Mr. Yang got is rather interesting:

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Well after all the hype during these past three months Microsoft has withdrawn their bid for Yahoo. With the final offer coming in at $33 per share or a total of $47.5 billion, that was just not enough to match the $37 per share or $53 billion that Yahoo was requesting. Steve Ballmer was also later quoted as stating that Microsoft would not proceed with a hostile takeover because they felt Yahoo “would take steps that would make Yahoo undesirable as an acquisition for Microsoft.”

That is that, the deal is dead.

Read [Yahoo! News]

Saturday’s deadline passed with no deal for Microsoft and Yahoo. The two companies have been negotiating for sometime now after Microsoft expressed interest in acquiring it’s rival web portal. Now Microsoft is deciding whether to launch a hostile takeover via proxy fight or to simply drop the deal. Yahoo had no comment but Microsoft CFO Chris Liddell had this to say:

“Unless we make progress with Yahoo towards an agreement by this weekend, we will reconsider our alternatives. We will provide updates as appropriate next week, these alternatives clearly including taking an offer to the Yahoo shareholders, or to withdraw our proposal and focus on other opportunities, both organic and inorganic.”

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If you think that the Microsoft-Yahoo merger issue is already dead, think again as here comes Yahoo issuing yet again another statement saying that they are not opposed to Microsoft’s buyout offer. But they will definitely not accept Microsoft’s proposed $31 per-share offer.

Yahoo issued the statement as a reaction to the recently published letter from Microsoft which gave Yahoo an April 26 deadline to accept their final offer. In the said letter, Microsoft threatened to resort to hostile takeover should Yahoo continue to refuse the $31 per-share price.

And while this seems to be a back-and-forth game that is being played, Yahoo is expected to send a return letter that denies Microsoft’s claims that Yahoo’s business is falling apart.

Read [Reuters]

In a recent letter to the Yahoo! board of directors, Steve Ballmer has set an ultimatum upon the company behind the most visited site in the world, according to traffic ranking site Alexa. On January 31 of this year, Microsoft made its $46 billion dollar offer to takeover the Sunnyvale internet giant, which was 62 percent more their market value on that day.

Ballmer, in his letter, was hoping for a “speedy and ultimately friendly transaction.” However, Yahoo! has vehemently resisted the takeover, had declined the hefty offer.  Well, Steve “Developer” Ballmer will not be denied, and has stated that he believes the time “is now” for the two companies to carry through with the merger.  Thus, Ballmer has given Yahoo! three weeks to accept, or the Redmond giant will drop its offer price, and be a little more hostile.

Watch out in the next month for more on this developing story.

Read [CNET News]

InfoWorld is reporting that Yahoo has agreeed to Microsoft’s offer after haggling that went deep into the night.  The final price looks to be $2.6 Billion more than Microsofts original offer.  Steve Ballmer expects the next six months will be spent deciding how to redecorate Yahoo offices and how to best integrate the two companies.

Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang, who had publicly opposed the acquisition, said, “Being part of Microsoft will let the Yahoo vision reach further than we could have done on our own. And we will provide Microsoft the engine it needs to deliver on its Web-based services vision.”

I am just thrilled this is over.  It seemed inevitable to come to this conclusion.  Those looking for an April fools joke, yep, that is what it is...thanks InfoWorld.

Read [InfoWorld]

Thanks to the SEC, we got the view from a desk jobber at Yahoo! about all the sensational events taking place.  Microsoft has said they’ll trim the fat and eliminate jobs that are duplicated in a buy out scenario.  If I worked at Yahoo, I’d be a bit preoccupied too.In his email Jerry Yang works to make 3 points very clear to employees:

1. Yahoo has made no decisions
2. Get back to work
3. No, really get back to work.  We’ll tell you when we’ve sold our soul to the devil.

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Microsoft’s offer of $44.6 Billion for Yahoo boggles the mind and soul.  MicroHoo?  Kicking the “WTF"s around the Gadgetell newsroom, we all are scratching our heads over it.  Has Microsoft just offered to buy a sinking Titanic?  For what: deck chairs and movie rights?

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