Microsoft remains optimistic it will succeed in its attempt to acquire Yahoo! for a proposed offer of US$44.6 billion. “We continue to have a very close dialogue with Yahoo!’s shareholders and management,” Microsoft Senior VP Jean-Philippe Courtois told AFP. “We simply hope for what we think is a very nice merger in terms of economies of scale, research and development, innovation, data centres… [and] to play a major role in the world.”

Last week Microsoft urged Yahoo! to ‘take a hard look’ at the offer after the Internet company initially rejected it, arguing it undervalued Yahoo!’s assets. Yahoo! is reported to have been in recent independent talks with News Corp, AOL and Google in an effort to try and fend off Microsoft’s acquisition attempts.