Yahoo! to Microsoft: No means no (until we say yes)

Yahoo! has rejected the 10,247th buyout proposal to date from Microsoft. The New York Times reports that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and investor Carl Icahn made another offer to purchase Yahoo!'s search business on Friday night -- and gave the company 24 hours to respond. Because we've seen how well ultimatums work in the past. Unsurprisingly, The Yahoo! board rejected the offer.

Now are you ready for the funny part? In a detailed press release, Yahoo! explains that the board would prefer an outright sale of the company. The asking price? $33 per share -- or exactly what Microsoft offered several months ago. Yahoo! has seen its stock price fall significantly since that offer, and probably one of the only surefire ways to boost the stock price is to sign a deal with Microsoft or another company. But there's really no reason for Microsoft to pay $33 per share for a company that's stock price would only actually be worth that much money if and when Microsoft ponies up the cash.

Tags: acquisition, carl-icahn, microsoft, news, steve-ballmer, yahoo