vik_c - 5:25 pm on Feb 5, 2008 (gmt 0)

So, IMHO give it at most 10 years and GOOG market cap will be that of YHOO, and MSFT will then realize, it wasn't such a good deal to purchase YHOO.

I'm inclined to agree with this one. Most companies start out mergers and acquisitions imagining that synergies will ensure sum of the parts turn out greater than the whole. This is very rarely the case. You can go back in time and check on Time Warner-AOL or Daimler-Chrysler or any of the high profile mergers and confirm this. I know people will say this is a buyout, not a merger. There's really no difference. In the spirit of the deal it is a merger if Microsoft has to issue a large amount of its stock and pay $20 Bn in cash.