Has the sleeping giant awoken or is this a last ditch effort to remain relevant? After buying Tumblr last week, Yahoo is now in the mix to buy Hulu with numbers in the $600m to $800m being tossed around.
They don’t seem to be done yet, either.
At the same time and separately, according to sources inside the company, Yahoo is also contemplating at least two other significant purchases — in the $150 million to $200 million range — each for a mobile and a communications company.
Wow, guys. This really is Marissa Mayer’s Yahoo, isn’t it? The Tumblr deal was huge, even if mostly symbolic, but to be involved in these other discussions so soon after their first big deal in years is a sign of many things. They have deeper pockets than many probably assumed. They now have a hunger for conquest that they haven’t been able to display in nearly 3 years. They have a desire to get more deeply embedded in communication, something that Google, Microsoft, Apple, and Facebook have all displayed over the years.
Are they ready to start being in the conversations with the top echelon tech companies? Is this just a way to get attention and stay relevant for as long as possible while they revamp a company that has been all but broken for a couple of years? Will Mayer push the company to greatness or drive it off a cliff?
All of these are the types of questions that nobody has been asking about Yahoo for a long time. If that’s part of the goal, then we can call this part of the mission accomplished.
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