Since I just installed Firefox 3 and starting with a clean slate I am having to go through my Tweaks List anyway to get Firefox 3 setup the way I like it. This will give me a chance to see which ones work with Firefox 3 and which ones don’t (and which ones should be removed). Further this section requires a massive redesign as right now it is nothing more than a list of links with brief descriptions. I will be breaking these tweaks into categories to make them easier to find. Look for the redesign section to go live later this month.

WordPress.com is always adding new features and hadn’t even realized they added a related posts feature. The new feature called Possibly related posts was added back at the end of April. Here’s a brief overview on how this feature works:

In a feature we’re calling possibly related posts we’ll now try to show posts related to yours a little section at the end. If we find any posts on your blog that are related, we’ll put those at the very top and in bold. Next we’ll show other posts from around WordPress.com, and finally we’ll check if there’s anything in the mainstream media.

I have finally gotten around to installing Firefox 3 Beta 5 earlier today. I haven’t done much yet, but noticed a bit of an interface change. The first thing I went to do was go into about:config to make some modifications to the default settings. Upon entering about:config in the address bar and pressing enter I was presented with this humorous warning. This replaces a similar warning from earlier versions of Firefox 3.

Microsoft’s Ballmer and Yahoo’s Yang are pointing fingers at each other, blaming the other for the failed merger. With Yahoo’s stock dropping some 14% ($4.30 per share), Yang told Reuters today:

We were negotiating a way to find common ground and then on Saturday they chose to walk away… They started it and they walked away.

Ballmer stated on Saturday with his letter withdrawing the bid, he was disappointed that Yahoo! would not accept their $33 per share offer up from the initial $31 per share offer from back in January:

In our conversations this week, we conveyed our willingness to raise our offer to $33.00 per share, reflecting again our belief in this collective opportunity. This increase would have added approximately another $5 billion of value to your shareholders, compared to the current value of our initial offer. It also would have reflected a premium of over 70 percent compared to the price at which your stock closed on January 31. Yet it has proven insufficient, as your final position insisted on Microsoft paying yet another $5 billion or more, or at least another $4 per share above our $33.00 offer.

Yang says Yahoo! is still leaving the door open for Microsoft:

If they have anything new to say, we would be open … I am more than willing to listen.

Let’s put things this into perspective:

• Yahoo’s stock closed at $24.37 per share today
  
• January 31st, the day before Microsoft made the offer, Yahoo’s stock had closed at $19.18 per share
• February 1st, the day of the Microsoft offer, Yahoo’s stock jumped up 47% to close at $28.38 per share
• Given the Yahoo! share holders are not happy with Yang, chances are the stock is going to continue to fall as the week progresses. Some analysts project it could go as low as $20 per share or less [U.S. News & World Reports]
  
• $33 or even the initial $31 per share offer (which would have been 72% and 61% higher than the January 31st close) would have been a great deal
• Should Microsoft choose to come back around, it is pretty sure sign their offer is going to be much lower this time. Further if Yahoo’s stock keeps dropping it could turn into Microsoft bailing out Yahoo!

Microsoft’s stock faired well today, only dropping 16¢ per share to close at $29.08 per share.

News Source: Todd Bishop’s Microsoft Blog

Here’s an overview of this week’s Update Meeting:

• Fx 2.0.0.15 - Status: In Progress
  • Code freeze: June 6
  • Builds start: June 9
  • QA starts: June 10
  • Release to beta channel: June 17
  • Final Release: June 24

• Firefox 3 RC 1
  • 11 blockers left on the front end
  • 3 to be patched
    • 2 Places bugs, ETA today
    • Fx3 credits, waiting on last call, will be closed out today. See mconnor’s blog post for the last call for nominations, please _email_ nominations to mconnor by EOD.
  • 27 fixed in the last week

• Gecko 1.9 RC 1

• Code freeze: April 8th
• Builds start:
• QA starts:
• Release to beta channel:
• Final Release:
• Blocker Status:

  • 11 Blockers remaining for RC
    • Content: 2 (2 w/ patches)
    • GFX: 5 (1 w/ Patches)
    • JS: 0 (0 w/ Patches)
    • Layout: 0 (0 w/ Patches)
    • Platform: 1 (1 w/ Patches)
    • General: 3 (1 w/ Patches)

• Still 1 unowned blocker.
• Approximately 1 have patches of some sort.
• Blockers closed in last seven days by platform team: 30
• Blockers created in last seven days: 13

• Lightning/Sunbird (Calendar Project) - No Report
• TBird 2.0.0.14 - Status: RELEASED

• Code freeze:
• Builds start: April 22nd
• QA starts: April 23rd
• Release to beta channel: April 25th
• Released: May 1st

• TBird 2.0.0.15 - Currently working on bug triage
• TBird 3.0a1
  • Thunderbird bug day: Every Thursday
  • Code Freeze: April 22
  • No blockers
  • Builds commencing soon
  • Test day on Thursday

Complete Meeting Notes

Today is the first business day since Yahoo! rejected Microsoft’s final offer. Yahoo’s stock dropped $5.65 per share to $23.02 when the markets opened this morning. Currently it has recovered slightly and been hovering around $24.50 per share.

Microsoft on the other hand saw a very slight increase (71¢ per share) in their stock price with an opening of $29.95 per share. Currently the stock price has been around $29.80 per share.

Besides how low Yahoo’s stock can drop it will also be interesting to see what happens with Yahoo! CEO Jerry Yang. One has to wonder if he has something currently in the works with Google or *shudder* AOL. How else could his decision to turn down Microsoft’s offer of $33 per share be explained? Granted it was not the $37 per share that Yang and Filo had said the board would have been amenable to on Saturday. However it is better than $23-$25 per share price the stock is at today.

Todd Bishop has put together a time line of the Microsoft/Yahoo! events of the past 3 months. This includes several ’secret’ meetings between Microsoft & Yahoo! as well as the public milestones.

Timeline: Microsoft’s secret Yahoo meetings

According to the Associated Press, Microsoft has given up and is walking away from the deal to buy-out Yahoo. Check back for any developments.

UPDATED 5:20 PM PDT: C|Net has confirmed it is over between Microsoft & Yahoo:

In a letter to Yahoo’s CEO Jerry Yang, Microsoft chief Steve Ballmer confirmed that Microsoft was willing to offer $33 a share, but that Yahoo was holding out for at least $37 a share, or $5 billion more than Microsoft was prepared to spend. In the letter, Ballmer also says he is ruling out a direct offer to shareholders.

“After careful consideration, we believe the economics demanded by Yahoo do not make sense for us, and it is in the best interests of Microsoft stockholders, employees and other stakeholders to withdraw our proposal,” he said.

News Sources:

• Todd Bishop Microsoft Blog
• C|Net News

Vote and see the results of the The Seattle Post-Intelligencer’s Poll: What should Microsoft do with its Yahoo bid?

The choices:

1. Raise the offer to make a deal or bring Yahoo to the table
2. Keep the offer as is and attempt a hostile takeover
3. Lower the price and attempt a hostile takeover
4. Withdraw the offer temporarily and try to revive it later
5. Walk away from the deal entirely.

News Source: Todd Bishop’s Microsoft Blog

It has been nearly a week since Microsoft’s deadline for Yahoo! to accept their merger offer has passed. There had been indications that Microsoft would simply walk away from the deal. But then on Wednesday, it was reported the Microsoft Board was meeting about the possible acquisition. Then late Thursday there was the possibly Microsoft was going to attempt a hostile take over.

Today the New York Times is reporting Microsoft and Yahoo are in active merger talks. According to an anonymous source involved in the discussion:

Microsoft, which had threatened to abandon its bid, has increased its offer “by several dollars,” this person said. The merger talks represent an enormous breakthrough following weeks of behind-the-scenes discussions without any progress. Exact terms being discussed could not be learned.

News of the talk caused Yahoo’s stock to rally, trading as high as $29.73 per share, an increase of about 7.5% from the $27.65 per share opening price. Yahoo’s stock closed at $28.67 per share but was around $29.45 per share in after-hours trading. The New York Times also reports:

…some Yahoo shareholders say that they have received a flurry of phone calls from both Yahoo and Microsoft, as the two companies are trying to find out what price large shareholders would find acceptable.

Microsoft’s stock dropped slightly to $29.24 per share today for yesterday’s $29.40 per share close (which was the highest closing price this week). In after-hours trading the stock has dropped another 10¢ per share.

Even though both parties are in active talks, The Wall Street Journal points out:

Though the talks have intensified, a deal was not imminent and the people familiar with the matter said an agreement was not likely on Friday. The people cautioned that the talks could fail to produce an accord, as have previous attempts to reach a deal.

News Source: Todd Bishop’s Microsoft Blog

The addons.mozilla.org (AMO) site was updated to version 3.4.1 earlier this week. Some of the more notable updates/fixes in this AMO release include:

• Added back the application compatibility ranges on the add-on details pages (example: Works with: Firefox 1.5 to 3.0 pre)
• Due to popular demand, we’ve separated Themes from Appearance-related extensions and Dictionaries & Language Packs from “Language Support” extensions. So, there are a few more categories that appear on the left-hand side menu.
• Increased the default add-on list size from 10 to 20

Adding back the application compatibility ranges is a much needed fixed. I had discussed the importance of having these details on the AMO 3.2.1 Coming Soon post:

…simply telling the user ‘This add-on is for an older version of Firefox’ doesn’t really help them. It really should say what older version of Firefox it is for. The logic behind this would be so the user could determine if the add-on simply hasn’t been bumped up to the newest version or (in the case for a much older version) the developer has abandoned the add-on.

You can check out the complete list of fixes for the AMO 3.4.1. release on Bugzilla. Look for another update on the AMO site in about two weeks.

News Source: Basil’s Bodacious Blog

As mentioned in the Weekly Update 2008-04-28, Thunderbird 2.0.0.14 is to be released today. Users will be prompted for an automatic update within the next 72 hours.Those wishing to upgrade now can do so via the Help Menu, Check For Updates option or by downloading the latest release at getthunderbird.com. Thunderbird 2.0.0.14 contains many security fixes and the full details can be found in the Thunderbird 2.0.0.14 Release Notes.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting the Microsoft Board is meeting today in regards to their possible take-over of Yahoo!

The people say that it’s unclear what final approach Microsoft will take, but that discussions between the two companies have been stymied by a stark divide on price. Microsoft has said privately in recent days that it’s willing to offer as much as $32 or $33 a share, well above the $29.12-a-share value of its original cash-and-stock offer as of Tuesday’s market close, these people say. But major Yahoo shareholders have signaled they want in the range of $35 to $37 a share, with Yahoo’s management and board similarly shooting for an offer in the upper $30s…

There also word Yahoo! is still considering possible ventures with AOL or Google. Today Yahoo! stock has been trading between $26.76 and $27.78 per share while Microsoft has been between $28.51 and $29.21 per share.

News Source: Todd Bishop’s Microsoft Blog

This past Saturday, April 26th was the deadline Microsoft had given Yahoo before they would go directly to the shareholders. This deadline was established via a follow-up letter from Microsoft CEO, Steve Ballmer to Yahoo on April 5th. On last Thursday, April 24th Microsoft finance chief Chris Liddell made comments to investors and then employees:

…another of the company’s options is to abandon the bid entirely. If no deal was reached by Saturday, the options are “to try to facilitate a transition, to possibly go directly to Yahoo shareholders. Or to walk away and go back to our original organic strategy,” he tells employees in an internal broadcast last week, according to a transcript filed with the SEC.

So now the deadline has passed and we wonder what is going to be Microsoft’s next move? More so given the above statements from Microsoft’s Liddell. A bit too early tell at this moment being it is still very early on the west coast. But this could prove to be a very interesting week, especially if Ballmer and Microsoft end up walking away from the whole bid.

Note: April 30th/May 1st mark the 90th day since Microsoft’s unsolicited offer for Yahoo back on January 31st.

News Source: Todd Bishop’s Microsoft Blog