So Microsoft has decided that it would reconsider buying all or part of Yahoo if Carl Icahn's slate of directors is elected.
Rob Hof at Business Week thinks that it's not likely to be just talk, but that Steve Ballmer and Icahn have agreed on a price. Since Icahn's only plan if he wins is to sell the company to Microsoft, Microsoft would otherwise have the upper hand in any negotiations. That makes sense to me.
What doesn't make sense to me is why such a merger would be a good idea. In technology, mergers rarely work.
I get so tired of people saying that a company's primary obligation is to its shareholders. Whatever happened to the idea that the focus of a company should be on its products and customers? A merger would make shareholders richer, but would it really be in the best long-term interests of Yahoo? Not likely.
The stock market is a gamble. You should buy stocks in companies you admire and trade on your confidence in their strategy. Anything else is an attempt to rig the game. The idea of buying a bunch of shares in a company and then using that leverage to force a merger just to increase the short-term stock price and make a quick profit is reprehensible to me.