Yahoo CEO: Microsoft CEO's Pants on Fire

If this Yahoo-Microsoft deal debacle becomes any more ludicrous, NBC will be able to use it as a plot line in the next season of “The Office.”

First Yahoo (YHOO) insiders claim that the company didn’t know Microsoft had raised its bid for the company to $33-per-share. And now Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang is telling anyone who will listen that Yahoo remains open to a deal with Microsoft. “If they have anything new to say, we would be open,” Yang told Reuters. “I am more than willing to listen. There are some that are disappointed that a deal was not reached and there are others that are probably pleased we didn’t do the deal at $33. The bottom line is we went in there to have honest and good-faith negotiations and they walked away. We didn’t walk away.”

Yang gave a similar story to the New York Times, again blaming Microsoft (MSFT) for the failed negotiations. “They chose to walk away after we put a price on the table, and they didn’t want to negotiate,” he said of Microsoft. “From my perspective, we were open all along to selling to Microsoft. We just feel Yahoo, either standalone or with Microsoft, is worth more than what they put on the table.”

Yang’s account, of course, conflicts with that of Microsoft and its CEO Steve Ballmer, who insist the software giant attempted to negotiate in good faith and Yahoo settled on a price of $37 a share and ultimately refused to budge.