Commenter ABMW writes:

Are there any other suitors for Yahoo? Not really, according to CNBC. They shoot down a number of potential buyers including IAC, Time Warner, and News Corp. The pundits posit AT&T as the only possible mate. Henry Blodget pours water on that theory too. He talked to a "senior executive" at Microsoft who says "AT&T encouraged us to make the bid. They have no interest in buying Yahoo themselves." GIven the huge premium Microsoft is offering, they may run away with Yahoo without a fight.

Does Microsoft's $44.6 billion Yahoo bid put AOL in play? Premarket trading sent Time Warner shares up 7 percent , indicating some investors think so. DealBook agrees, saying Google might target the Time Warner company for its advertising platform, "Internet service" and "Web site." Google already owns a 5 percent stake in AOL. And AOL is better at wining and dining advertisers the old-fashioned way; Google might buy the company just to bulk up its sales force. As for the rest of AOL? I don't know why Google bought even 5 percent of that.

Experts we trolled this morning gave us a bunch of long-winded observations on a Microsoft-Yahoo deak that boil down to this: Microsoft + Yahoo = failed search engine + failed website. A spokesman at Google was laughing too hysterically to comment.

Wall Street analysts — those lordly thinkers who would run companies if they weren't so busy pontificating about them — say that Jerry Yang should accept Microsoft's offer and that regulators will rubber-stamp the merger in due course. Of course, they also thought Panama was going to be a game-changer and that Sue Decker was a strong leader. A rundown of their newly revised statements of the obvious:

Answer: No. Don't wait around for Google to swoop in and put Yahoo out of its misery. Larry and Sergey can't even kill DoubleClick, a much smaller company they've been trying to acquire for almost a year now. Beltway busybodies are already talking up an antitrust investigation into Microsoft's bid. Now imagine Google in place of Microsoft. See? You're getting smarter already.

We've partnered up with Drew Curtis at Fark to run a photoshop contest:

What are we likely to see as the result of the Microsoft-Yahoo takeover?

Do your best and post it on Fark or email it to us if you want to remain anonymous. We'll post the winners next week. (Photo by AP/Mark Lennihan)

Google PR überführer Elliot Schrage has issued a diktat, we hear: No comment! Google employees are forbidden to comment "officially or unofficially" on the Microsoft-Yahoo deal. Right. Like that makes any difference. We haven't been able to get any of our Google sources to stop laughing long enough to give us an opinion.

What do we call this Microsoft-Yahoo thing, anyway? "Merger"? "Buyout"? "Elaborate game of footsie"? It's not a hostile takeover — yet. But Steven Davidoff writes in DealBook that Microsoft could go hostile if Yahoo resists. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer wrote:

Big daddy Ballmer, back from waking up Yang and the rest of the Yahoos with a big old bear hug letter has penned an internal memo, leaked to Alley Insider. Maybe you haven't heard that Ballmer loves this company? Now he loves two!

Commenter ex_yhoo_music writes a letter to Microsoft offering "helpful" tips on how to run its Yahoo acquisition.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is holding a conference call at 10 a.m. for his employees to discuss the company's offer to buy Yahoo. Boring. Unless he throws a chair during the phoner, we're not interested. [Silicon Alley Insider]

This morning, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer made the usual polite noises about "integrating" Yahoo's management into Microsoft. The reality? Come on. They're all fired, except for the geeks. If Microsoft had any respect for current management, they would have negotiated a friendly deal instead of launching a takeover. Most of the executive suite will be gone, I bet, within six months if the takeover succeeds. Here are the details on who's in and who's out, starting at the top.

The Fox Business Network had Google's Tim Armstrong on this morning to talk about YouTube, but quickly transitioned to the much bigger news of the day: the Microsoft takeover of Yahoo.

Yahoo employees must be sick of hearing from Jerry Yang. Not two days after an all-hands meeting, Yang is asking employees to dial in to a conference call this morning at 9:30 a.m. to discuss the buyout offer from Microsoft. (Anyone care to supply us with the passcode, or report on what was said after the call? Drop us a line.) Update: The call was apparently for managers only — rank and file just got a Web video from Yang posted on Backyard, Yahoo's internal employee website.

Microsoft may have just salvaged your stock options, Yahoos, but you're not out of the woods yet. Layoffs are still coming. It just might not Decker and Yang dropping the ax. But don't worry! Your employer has advice for you Check out "Bullet-Proof Yourself Against a Layoff" by Caroline Levchuck for Yahoo HotJobs, here condensed into a more digestible but still bitter pill.

Yahoo advertisers, get ready for moving pains. Microsoft's offer might be salvation for Yahoo shareholders, but Yahoo's advertising customers have plenty of headaches ahead. Yahoo has more display advertising customers on its platform than Microsoft does on its AdCenter. But because this deal is Microsoft's, don't expect Microsoft to move AdCenter customers to Yahoo's platform. Nope. Experts believe they'll be changing platforms. Again. Just like they had to do last year, when Yahoo finally introduced Panama. [Search Engine Land]

Microsoft offered to buy Yahoo for $31 per share, a 62 percent premium on yesterday's close that sets Yahoo's value at $44.6 billion Here's the Squawk Box breakdown. Check out our continuing coverage.

Microsoft's $44.6 billion offer to buy Yahoo isn't its first. It's just the first to go public. Here, we track the board-room romance back to its beginnings.

The timing of Microsoft's offer to buy Yahoo couldn't be better. Yesterday's market close — $19.11 — marked a four-year low for Yahoo. And while Microsoft's offer to buy Yahoo for $31 a share marks a 62 percent premium over that close, Yahoo share prices closed on a higher price, $31.11, as recently as November 2, 2007. Reporting earnings earlier this week, Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang and president Susan Decker promised display advertising innovations would have the company turned around by 2009. Impatient investors tanked the stock on more promises of an eventual turnaround. But would taking Microsoft's lowball offer be too rash a move? Or is it getting out cheap? Let us know in this latest Valleywag poll.