14 DAY TRIAL // Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was one of the top company executives that supported the idea of the Redmond giant taking over Yahoo, and now that he’s no longer within the firm, he decided to provide a few more details about how such a deal would have worked.
In an interview with CNBC, Ballmer explained that he believes Microsoft and Yahoo have some sort of synergy that could bring them together to work for a common goal, explaining that he truly believed that search engines would have been substantially improved if the two companies signed a deal.
"Not interested in Twitter"
Yahoo was already sold to Verizon for $4.8 billion earlier this year, a move which the US carrier most likely regrets given the hacking scandal that was revealed shortly after the acquisition, so there are small chances to see a closer tie-up between them and Microsoft.
"Microsoft is the only company that ever had any synergy with Yahoo, because you could fold the two search businesses together, get rid of engineers - all the good stuff can happen," he said in a somewhat weird statement because "getting rid of engineers" certainly raises some questions regarding Ballmer’s strategy should such a deal had gone through.
"And yet, most of the value in Yahoo wound up being in Alibaba anyway. So, we would have bought all of that value in Alibaba - not all of which we knew existed. But with 20/20 hindsight, who knows whether it was right," he continued.
Ballmer also commented on rumors linking him to a possible Twitter takeover, explaining that although he likes the service, he believes that Google should be the one buying it.
"You might wonder whether that could be the start of a beautiful friendship. But it doesn’t appear to be the direction it’s heading," he continued.
Ballmer, who is currently the owner of basketball team Los Angeles Clippers, has said he has no plans of increasing his 4 percent share in Twitter, as he wants to remain focused on his sports investments for the time being.