Tellme's Tale As Microsoft Subsidiary

March 1, 2008 By MICHAEL LIEDTKE, AP Business Writer Tellme's Tale As Microsoft Subsidiary (AP)

Tellme general manager and founder Mike McCue poses with active phones at company headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2008. McCue spent eight years building Tellme, a voice-automation service that he never expected to sell, especially to Microsoft, which antagonized and eventually annihilated his previous employer, Netscape Communications. But McCue's feelings changed after he met with Microsoft's boisterous chief executive, Steve Ballmer, and the two men quickly agreed on an $800 million deal that represents Microsoft's biggest Silicon Valley acquisition so far. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)

(AP) -- Mike McCue hasn't talked to Yahoo Inc. co-founder Jerry Yang since Microsoft Corp. ambushed the Internet pioneer with an unsolicited takeover bid a month ago. But McCue would like his old friend to know that becoming a Silicon Valley subsidiary of the world's largest software maker can work out well.

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superhuman - Mar 01, 2008
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Microsoft didn't ruin tellme only cause it didn't have enough time and were busy elsewhere. I imagine that they bought tellme to show the world that microsoft is good for the firms that they buy in anticipation of future much bigger takeovers (like yahoo).

> "We feel like we are having as much of an influence on Microsoft as they are having on us."
haha
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bigwheel - Mar 03, 2008
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Yeah, let's have a company that thieves, lies and cheats, can't
write a decent operating system because there isn't as much to
be made if they do, buy a great company like yahoo and ruin it.
They only want the tracking of users ability to sell to advertisers.
It's all about getting more personnel info on their users.
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