Potential Bidding War For Yahoo Heating Up
SUNNYVALE (KPIX 5) -- Yahoo is one of the iconic brands of Silicon Valley, and still one of the most popular places for users on the web.
"Yahoo is my base page. When I go on the computer it goes directly to Yahoo, when I want my news, I go to Yahoo as well," Yahoo user Brian Epes of Los Gatos said.
Epes has been using Yahoo for free email since the internet company was young, and he's stayed ever since.
"When you think Silicon Valley, you think yahoo," Epes said.
And that may be why there is now a world-wide bidding war to buy Yahoo.
The UK's Daily Mail is the latest in a long list of potential suiters that also includes big names Microsoft, Verizon, Google, Time, AT&T, and Alibaba.
But, Yahoo is not the money maker it once was. Profits are expected to be down 20 percent this year, and it workforce could be trimmed from 10,500 workers down to about 9 thousand workers by the end of the year."
"It's a company that doesn't really know what it is," CBS Tech Analyst Larry Magid said.
Magid also said that Yahoo's various parts are still interesting to large tech companies wanting to diversify.
"Even though the company may not be setting the world on fire in terms of profits, it still gets a lot of traffic, and can generate a lot of revenue for an advertising play," Magid said.
Yahoo is expected to be worth a reported $8 billion for its core internet business.
What's uncertain is whether it will be swallowed up whole, or sold off in pieces.
