Yahoo/ Microsoft Update

It is over a month since Microsoft announced its initial bid to buy Yahoo for $31 a share

We thought we catch up on some developments.

Yahoo pushed back the March 14 deadline to nominate Yahoo’s board members until 10 days after it sets a date for its annual stockholder meeting.

Yahoo has not set a date for its next annual stockholder meeting.  Under Delaware law, It could push the date as far back as July 12 which would be exactly 13 months from of its last shareholder meeting .

According to other reports Yahoo and Time Warner’s AOL unit have stepped up talks over creating an alternative to  Microsoft’s acquisition.

The talks center on a deal that would fold Time Warner’s AOL Internet unit into Yahoo with Time Warner taking a sizable minority stake in the combined entity.

Reportly, Yahoo has also been in talks with News Corp, whereby News Corp. would gain a stake in Yahoo in exchange for selling it MySpace and some other Web sites,

In other related news, according to reports European regulators are expected to approve Google’s $3.1 billion acquisition of Internet advertising group DoubleClick Inc. without conditions European approval of the deal, would be the last hurdle in Google’s bid to buy DoubleClick, a transaction that would enable Google to expand beyond search ads into the online display advertising market.

Microsoft has opposed the merger claiming that combining Google’s dominance in search advertising with DoubleClick’s strength in display ads could potentially give Google an unstoppable hold in the Internet ad market.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has already given the deal a tentative OK.