Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer sent a letter on Saturday to the Yahoo! board of directors giving them a deadline of three weeks to conclude a takeover agreement. In the letter Ballmer states “If we have not concluded an agreement within the next three weeks, we will be compelled to take our case directly to your shareholders, including the initiation of a proxy contest to elect an alternative slate of directors for the Yahoo! board.”

Google’s acquisition of DoubleClick closed on March 11th of this year, and now less than a month later they are making plans to eliminate up to 25% of the workforce in the acquired company. In another development Google announced that is was selling DoubleClick’s Performics subsidiary stating that they do not want to be in the search engine marketing business.

Countrywide’s CEO Angeo Mozilo and president David Sambol are set to receive a combined $19 million in stock as part of Bank of America’s takeover of the troubled mortgage giant according to documents filed on Thursday with the SEC by Bank of America.

As pressure continues to build on Angelo Mozilo, a Salon.com reader suggests that the Countrywide Financial CEO use his personal wealth to subsidize mortgage payments of company workers Mozilo is jettisoning.
Just counting the $130 million Mozilo made from sales of Countrywide stock this year, that would mean more than $10,000 apiece to 12,000 terminated workers.
Angelo […]

Some good insight into Google’s cellphone plans this week from Kevin Maney at Portfolio and Saul Hansell at The New York Times.
Writing about a recent interview he had with Motorolo CEO Ed Zander, Maney pointed out that Zander and Google CEO Eric Schmidt once worked together at Sun Microsystems.
“Zander was never direct about it, but […]

It’s one thing to have some shareholders, bloggers and newspaper reporters after you.
But it’s quite another when a featured columnist on The New York Times op-ed page takes aim.
Under the headline “Enron’s second Coming?” Paul Krugman lambasted Countrywide Financial CEO Angelo Mozilo Monday, saying that a big lesson from the “housing mess” is that the […]

Sources are telling Business Week that Apple is considering bidding for valuable wireless spectrum in the government auction early next year.
That’s the same auction in which Google has said it will likely participate.
Even more reason to suspect that the two tech powerhouses are in cahoots on a mobile platform project.

After reading much of the recent speculation about and analysis of Google’s possible gPhone plans, including excellent stuff by BusinessWeek and Silicon Alley Insider, only two conclusions are possible:
1) It’s all b.s.
2) Somehow, Google and Apple will be in cahoots.
Surely, Apple shareholders and Steve Jobs wouldn’t allow Google CEO Eric Schmidt to remain an Apple director if […]