Month: May 2008

Congrats to Mur!

By Evan — — Writing

Last week, I was having Korean BBQ for lunch with some friends from work. We started talking about superpowers, and whatever happens to the people with extremely minor powers. Like, say, the ability to instantly eliminate smells from your clothes and hair, so that you wouldn’t come back from lunch smelling like spicy pork for the rest of the day.

Or, I said, like a waitress who could tap a customer on the shoulder and remove the effects of drunkenness?

Yeah! my friends said. How come nobody tells stories about those people?

Oh, have I got a book for you! I said.

At Viable Paradise, I was privileged enough to see an early draft of Mur Lafferty’s Playing For Keeps, and right away it was clear that this manuscript was a winner. If you can’t wait for the release date in August, you can still get the whole book for free, in PDF or podcast form. As for Mur — I couldn’t be prouder of you and all the hard work you’ve put in to make this happen. You rock.

In tangentially related news: all-you-can-eat Korean BBQ is one of the truly great gastronomic experiences, but having Korean BBQ twice in the span of seven days is… inadvisable.

The Five Stages of Pundit Grief

By Evan — — Tech

Denial

“Wow. I’m shocked Yahoo wasn’t more reasonable. The stock will probably go down at least $5 on Monday. It is surprising that Ballmer walked away instead of trying a hostile bid at $33,” said Walter Price, a senior portfolio manager at RCM fund management company in San Francisco, which had 21 million Microsoft shares and 2 million Yahoo shares as of the end of December.

Anger

Ms. [Laura] Martin also had harsh words for Yahoo’s management’s “unbelievable” actions. “This is management putting its employees and its job security ahead of current Yahoo shareholders’ interest,” she told the news service. She also told Reuters that she expects several shareholders lawsuits to be filed against the company on Monday.

Bargaining

“Had there been a full deal on the table, a hostile deal, at $34 or $35, we would have had to take a look at it,” Bill Miller, a portfolio manager for Legg Mason, told The New York Times. “Our number was higher, but it doesn’t mean we would have rejected it.”

Depression

Microsoft’s disappointing numbers, which sent its stock down 4.5 percent in after-hours trading, will only put pressure on the software behemoth to raise its bid.

On Wednesday, Steve — as in Steven Ballmer, Microsoft’s chief executive — cavalierly suggested that the company doesn’t need Yahoo and can go it alone. (That’s untrue, by the way. If Mr. Ballmer doesn’t win Yahoo, his failure will be seen as a major management blunder, and shareholders could raise questions about his leadership.) He has also threatened to start a proxy contest by this Saturday unless Yahoo reaches a deal with them.

But Mr. Ballmer’s tough talk now appears to be pure bluster ahead of what he knew was going to be a bad quarter.

Acceptance

“We believe the economics demanded by Yahoo do not make sense for us, and it is in the best interests of Microsoft stockholders, employees and other stakeholders to withdraw our proposal,” Ballmer said in a statement.