Well now we know what Microsoft is going to do with all that money it was going to use to buy Yahoo.
No, not buy domains, or another internet company or do anything else that would help it compete with Google.
Instead Microsoft is going to use the money to buy back its own shares and increase its dividend its shareholders.
Microsoft will buy back the shares though September 2013. Microsoft also announced plans to pay a 13-cent quarterly dividend, which is an 18 percent increase over its previous quarterly dividend. The dividend will be payable on December 11 to shareholders of record as of November 20.
Once again Microsoft has missed a golden opportunity to make a move, any kind of move, on Google and instead is just giving it away.
Buying up domain portfolios would be too much outside-the-box thinking for Microsoft at this point. Even for Google, that is a radical idea. Google could just as easily devour all the major portfolios out there for a total of $5 billion and completely dominate the internet but it also chooses not to.
Conventionally, buying back shares and increasing dividends is a good thing. They did the best under the rules from 20 years ago I suppose.
RH Donnelley could’ve used the $345M it spent for business.com and instead bought Tucows and Dark Blue Sea and still had much cash left over. They could’ve had leverage to compete head to head with Marchex in online local search. But they’re also out of touch and are trying to survive in a possibly dying industry. So it’s not just the big boys.
Microsoft isn’t flexible company. I think they are too huge, so mostly nobody sees noones work or cares and everybody only waits for payday.
Buying of domains would be disaster for them cause they don’t have right people. They don’t think to future, as they have lost all the IE domains like IE7.com which is pointing to firefox.
They’ll still have plenty of cash on hand for whatever non-innovative venture they may (not) wish to pursue. They should be increasing their dividend, that used to be the whole point of being a shareholder. If they don’t need 100% of cash on hand to continue (responsibly and practically) running operations the excess should be given to the shareholders. It’s their company after all.
It is a clever move by Microsoft to buy back it’s own shares so it can make Bill Gates and Company even richer and gain more control of the Business.