This Just In: Reports of Yahoo's Death Are Greatly Exaggerated (Today)

The Yahoo board meeting, via phone, went off today without a resolution, as BoomTown surmised in an earlier post today.

See this report on the telephonic meeting from our excellent reporting colleagues at The Wall Street Journal, Kevin Delaney and Matthew Karnitschnig.

As you can see, the breathless reporting that Yahoo’s fate was to be decided today was, shall we say, a bit premature, and Microsoft will have to wait a bit longer to claim its prize.

Of course, as we also noted, it is unlikely Yahoo will have many options other than Microsoft, given that none seem viable.

That includes the threat of doing a deal with Google to take over its search-ad business.

As BoomTown noted:

But the Google threat is just that, claim sources close to Microsoft–-a threat that is relatively empty given that it still carries with it all the monopoly issues related to Google’s dominance over the search market if struck. If Google takes over Yahoo’s search business, the thinking goes, it might as well buy the whole company, given that the regulatory headaches are the same.

Google will argue, of course, that an independent Yahoo is free to pick whatever partner it wants, if it decides to outsource its search-ad business, without noting that the pickings are pretty slim.”

And getting slimmer.

(And here’s a very good email Silicon Alley Insider’s Henry Blodget penned for Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang to send out to the troops, which would be a step in the right direction.)

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.