Analysts have responded skeptically to yesterday's news that Yahoo is exploring a possible deal with News Corp. in lieu of Microsoft's bid for the company, which is now valued at $42.1 billion. Under the proposed deal, News Corp.'s Fox Interactive Media division become part of Yahoo and the media giant would pay around $9 billion in exchange for a 20 percent equity stake in the combined company, split between News Corp. and an unnamed private equity fund. The deal would make News Corp. Yahoo's majority shareholder. An interesting and unexpected proposal, but analyst Sanford C. Bernstein analyst Jeffrey Lindsay …

Vodafone CEO Arun Sarin warned mobile carriers to make their services easier and cheaper to use or they risk handing over their a lucrative portion of their business to companies like Google. He said mobile carriers have done a particularly poor job of making their services attractive to users; failing to fix that would be the industry's biggest mistake "We have lots of very complicated tariffs out there," Sarin said, adding that mobile services are often expensive, slow, and difficult both to find and use. "If you get [mobile services] wrong, the upside will still be …

Google it seems has lost the battle for the coveted C block of wireless spectrum currently being auctioned out by the Federal Communications Commission. Either Verizon or AT&T will win the spectrum, but Google has already achieved its primary goal. All the search giant really wanted was to open up competition in the wireless market, which thanks to the spectrum rules, would happen (to a certain extent) whether Google won the auction or not. Verizon or AT&T will be required to build a network that allows any kind of device or software to run on it. …

The chances of Yahoo accomplishing a Micro-hoo alternative are slim, which means that Yahoo is simply floating these alternatives to get Microsoft to up its $31 per share bid to $35. Microsoft, however, also has alternatives, which is important because many of the company's shareholders hate this deal. They are: walk away completely, walk away from Yahoo and buy Facebook instead, refuse to raise its bid, or get CEO Jerry Yang and the rest of the board fired. That any of these options are open underscores the fact that Microsoft has the advantage with this one and needn't …