> Glue has been noticed by a few commentators (e.g., TechCrunch), who mostly see it as response to Google's Universal Search (or Ask's search interface).

I'm glad that someone else has noted that Google intends to copy Ask. If you want see want Google's interface will be like in two years then switch to Ask.Com today.

Very well said. This is why it's great that Microsoft walked away.

Isn't it more that the Yahoo! board would not meet Microsoft's terms of stock price? From what I've gotten out of the noise, any "reasonable" board would have accepted the price, it was attractive. They instead effectively said "we'll only accept for a bit more," knowing (or guessing) that the "bit more" is not an acceptable price. If my judgment is in error here, please show me the way.

There isn't a huge difference between $33 and $37 for a really motivated party to walk away. Microsoft had decided, for whatever reason, most likely the fact that Yahoo is such a reluctant target, leading to huge integration issues, to walk away. They just used price as a face-saving excuse.

Yahoo still bears responsibility (in the eyes of its shareholders at least) for making Microsoft walk away with their intransigent attitude. But at least Yahoo got what it wanted - we will see if a year later, they still want the same result. Something tells me if Yahoo stock drifts down to $10 in an economic downturn, knives are going to be out ...

looks like too much information is trying to be displayed at once