Soundview thinks MSN & Yahoo will go it alone

Broker says MSN & Yahoo both will drop Overture by 2005

[TomWaits]

OVER's stock is at $15. Soundview says their target for the stock is $6. It's in the OVER stock news this morning, if you check at Yahoo Finance. Says their reason is that it's clear that MSFT is preparing to pursue their own paid search platform. We've discussed the YHOO case ad nauseum.

[scareduck]

And indeed, looks like they took a dump today -- rolling down 18% at the opening to $11.949. Yowch. [biz.yahoo.com].

[Brett_Tabke]

They included the trebling of Microsoft's current Internet search team, which is 70 people strong.

That's quite an expansion.

[Suki2003]

ouch, i wonder who Yahoo! and MSN will take now?

[Hollywood]

I think Overture or MSN should take out AskJeeves. Look at the chart for AskJeeves, something is up here.

All best ~Hollywood

[Brett_Tabke]

AJ being up is just a reaction to the news. If there were something up with them, it would have come longer ago than this morning.

[RoosterTail]

This is the best news I've heard all day! Lets hope their correct now... All about having options.. more and more options...

[aubuchon]

What about Microsoft playing up their "theoretical" paid search platform to drive Overture stock down so its cheaper to buy?

[edited by: aubuchon at 5:20 pm (utc) on April 2, 2003]

[EliteWeb]

I think Yahoo will drop overture. I was talken to a Yahoo Rep and they said they were already doing testing in specific keywords.

Yahoo has 10 billion ways to advertise but they want 10 billion dollars of your money in exchange ;)

[EquityMind]

Good point...and it sounds so classic Microsoft.....

[Captain]

Overture is in trouble. The company is only as good as their partnerships.

They will not be able to turn AV or Fast into anything that can compete with MSN and Yahoo (if they choose to go it alone). and I believe they will overpay for these two acquisitions.

If you own Overture stock, you may want to dump the stock... yesterday if possible. :)

Captain

[Captain]

I do like the idea about MS bluffing "going it alone" to drive down the Overture Stock Price. Overture is a great company with a giant portal powering the traffic. They are (obviously) worthless without search partners.

Captain

[chiyo]

explains why OV is buying search engines. If all yur customers are building their own widgets to replace using yours, you have to buy a few of the customers.

OV still trending downwards today while the nasdaq as a whole is up more than 3%

[jeremy goodrich]

70 people in Microsoft's team for search? That does seem like an aweful lot, unless they are going to do something with them.

And Yahoo -> well, duh, they made their own acquisition. They need long term, to take a bigger % of the money that comes from their brand which they (foolishly) have been giving away to Overture.

I think we all here are just waiting for the other shoe to drop...especially with Overture losing some ground (via Alltheweb) to Google in Europe.

[fuzzatonic]

Here is an article I found about Microsoft adding search capabilities.

[news.com.com ]

[charge]

Seems to me OVER foresaw problems with YAHOO and MSN and made a grab for some portal share with ALTA and WEB.With MSN and Yahoo having and soon to have paid inclusion is it correct to assume the step to sponsored listings is low barrier?
cheers,
charge!