Grant Gross
Senior Writer

Report: Microsoft in talks for a deal with AOL

news
Jul 16, 20081 min

Having been spurned by Yahoo, Microsoft is meeting with AOL to talk about the two companies combining

Microsoft is meeting with AOL executives Wednesday to talk about the two companies combining AOL and Microsoft’s online division, according to a news report.

Microsoft, spurned in its recent efforts to buy all or part of Yahoo, wants to explore ways to combine with AOL, according to the Wall Street Journal. The two companies have been discussing a possible deal for months as an alternative to Microsoft buying Yahoo, the Journal reported in its online edition Wednesday afternoon.

[ For the complete saga of Microsoft’s attempt to take over Yahoo, check out InfoWorld’s special report ]

Representatives of Microsoft and AOL didn’t immediately respond to a request for comments.

The structure of a deal between AOL and Microsoft hasn’t been worked out, the Journal said.

Microsoft has made multiple offers to buy Yahoo this year. Yahoo on Saturday rejected a joint proposal from Microsoft and investor Carl Icahn that would have sold Yahoo’s search business to Microsoft.

Grant Gross

Grant Gross, a senior writer at CIO, is a long-time IT journalist who has focused on AI, enterprise technology, and tech policy. He previously served as Washington, D.C., correspondent and later senior editor at IDG News Service. Earlier in his career, he was managing editor at Linux.com and news editor at tech careers site Techies.com. As a tech policy expert, he has appeared on C-SPAN and the giant NTN24 Spanish-language cable news network. In the distant past, he worked as a reporter and editor at newspapers in Minnesota and the Dakotas. A finalist for Best Range of Work by a Single Author for both the Eddie Awards and the Neal Awards, Grant was recently recognized with an ASBPE Regional Silver award for his article “Agentic AI: Decisive, operational AI arrives in business.”

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