There has been a lot of speculation on whether a deal with Yahoo/Microsoft will happen. I feel that this merger will happen and have outlined several reasons as to why this deal is almost a sure thing at this point.

Top 5 Reason Why the Yahoo/Microsoft Deal will Happen:

1) Microsoft needs Yahoo more than Yahoo needs Microsoft. To compete with the threat of Google and other Internet giants Microsoft would benefit huge from a deal like this. It would catapult them into the #1 Internet player ahead of Google instantaneously. Microsoft will pony up big to gain this status.

Looks like Microsoft is going to play hardball. They're going to try to force this merger. Read the letter Ballmer sent to Yahoo! executives today:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE MICROSOFT SENDS LETTER TO YAHOO! BOARD OF DIRECTORS REDMOND, Wash. — April 5, 2008 — Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) today sent the following letter to the Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) Board of Directors:

April 5, 2008

Board of Directors Yahoo! Inc. 701 First Avenue Sunnyvale, CA 94089

Dear Members of the Board:

Forget OpenSolaris, and hello to Ubuntu. In a bold move Sun seems to be adopting Ubuntu Linux and leaving behind OpenSolaris as well as some of the other major linux distros like RedHat and Suse.

In an interview with Reuters on April 2, Canonical CEO Mark Shuttleworth reinforced the "growing relations" between Sun and Ubuntu. This release comes just before the scheduled release of "Hardy Heron" Cononical's latest Ubuntu version due in late April.

The WSJ seems to put to rest the idea that Microsoft will sweeten its $44.6 billion offer to buy Yahoo! Microsoft feels that it can wait and is prepare to hunker down and battle till the end. They feel amid the turbulent economic times that their offer is more than fair.

Open source software (OSS) has been around since the inceptions of modern day computing. The ability of the Internet to bring together communities of developers to collaboratively work on software projects has helped the concept of OSS explode.

Often mergers are seen as synergistic business opportunities. Plans usually revolve around numbers and making them work. More focus should be put on merging corporate cultures. This is often much more difficult and can spell disaster especially for large corporate mergers.

Looks like Yahoo! grew a pair over the weekend and decided to reject the Microsoft bid. They are basically trying to get a "God Father" offer, i.e. an "Offer they can't refuse". This opens up the bidding and hopefully some other names with deep pockets step up. Possible contenders include Google, Apple, or a big media type like ABC/CBS.

The winner will instantly become the number #1 viewed site across the US (according to http://www.quantcast.com/).