Ballmer ?surprised? as Yahoo shares tumble

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said he was surprised by the market’s negative reaction to yesterday’s landmark agreement between the company and Yahoo.



Both groups are partnering together in a new war against Google’s search engine supremacy. Yahoo’s website will now be powered by Microsoft’s Bing search engine tech, while Yahoo will now act as the advertising sales team for both companies’ premium search advertisers.

And yet Yahoo shares fell 12 percent yesterday following the announcement.

“Yahoo gets 88 percent of the revenue,” said Ballmer during the company’s analyst day in Washington. “I was kind of surprised by market reaction.”

Microsoft shares immediately lifted 1 per cent after the partnership was officially announced. Ballmer was asked again if Microsoft was interested in a wholesale acquisition of Yahoo, to which he asserted the company was not.