Tellme's Tale As Microsoft Subsidiary

March 1, 2008 By MICHAEL LIEDTKE, AP Business Writer

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.

---

Content from The Associated Press expires 15 days after original publication date. For more information about The Associated Press, please visit www.ap.org .

---

Similar stories from PHYSorg:

Yahoo director to step down at end of year

Sep 25, 2009 | 5 / 5 (1) | 1

Microsoft, Yahoo! in search, ad talks

Apr 10, 2009 | 3 / 5 (1) | 0

Icahn pares Yahoo stake with sale of 12.7M shares

Aug 31, 2009 | 5 / 5 (1) | 1

Yahoo rallies on renewed hopes for Microsoft deal

Jul 17, 2009 | 4 / 5 (1) | 0

Rupert Murdoch, Tom Glocer support Microsoft-Yahoo merger

May 29, 2008 | 2.7 / 5 (3) | 1

• superhuman - Mar 01, 2008
  • Rank: not rated yet
  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
  • report abuse
  • • Current rank
    • 1
    • 2
    • 3
    • 4
    • 5
• bigwheel - Mar 03, 2008
  • Rank: not rated yet
  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.
  • report abuse
  • • Current rank
    • 1
    • 2
    • 3
    • 4
    • 5