In what may become the most interesting and reasonable alternative to the Microsoft acquisition of Yahoo yet, Yahoo is turning to another content and search oriented network which is owned by a very large media company, AOL.
The Financial Times of London (their site is currently redirecting due to an image problem) is reporting that after Yang and the Yahoo Board of Directors announced that they will not accept the Microsoft takeover bid of $31 per share (totaling almost $45 Billion), Yahoo is now talking with the Time Warner owned AOL company about a merger or alliance.
Of course the reasoning behind this move by Yahoo, if it is real, may be to sweeten their deal with Microsoft, adding more value to the Yahoo company and uping Microsoft’s offer to $40 per share … an amount those close to the Yahoo Board say Yahoo is willing to take.
I really do not see this highly benefiting Yahoo, but the core to a Microsoft alternative could be that Time Warner is more of an entertainment and content company, fitting the Yahoo model and would give the company the ability to become strong partners with CNN, Time.com, and other Time Warner properties.
Funny, it was only a year and a half ago that rumors were escalating that Yahoo was buying AOL, even after they dropped out of the initial bidding to buy part of AOL, which ultimately led to a Google partnership with the Time Warner company (yes, AOL is a Google Search partner and runs Google AdWords advertising on its network).
