It’s official now. Google acquires YouTube for a whopping US$1.65 billion, in an all-stock deal.
While the markets reacted favorably and analysts seem happy, here is an interesting (and expected?) reaction from Steve Ballmer, as reported by Patrick Thibodeau of Computer World.
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer today all but dismissed Google Inc.’s just-announced $1.65 billion purchase of video-sharing service YouTube as a waste of money … “If you look at most of the content up at YouTube today, it is copyrighted material,” said Ballmer. For all the chatter about how YouTube is all about home video, in the end people want to see things like replays of the recent 60 Minutes interview with former Hewlett-Packard Co. chairman Carly Fiorina, said Ballmer.
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Steve Ballmer