• by George Simpson , Featured Contributor, April 11, 2008

On reading that the Internet will replace television as the biggest advertising medium in Britain by the end of 2009, Microsoft dropped its increasingly hostile bid for Yahoo and has now made an offer to purchase the United Kingdom.

Microsoft's offer of $15 for each of the nation's 60 million citizens puts a valuation on the Spectred Isle of about $900 million, well below the nation's GNP of about $1.6 trillion. In a statement, Steve Ballmer said he felt it was a fair offer because Britain is widely considered to be "a distressed property" since it no longer has The Beatles, Lady Diana or India. "The industrial base hasn't been updated since Charles Dickens and with nutcase extremists planting bombs here and there and that baggage mess at Heathrow, nobody wants to go there anymore. Let's not even talk about the food," added Ballmer.

Analysts assume that on completion of a successful takeover, Microsoft would break up the leftover empire, selling parts of it to recoup some of the pocket change it will use for the purchase. Northern Ireland is expected to be sold almost immediately -- although other than the Vatican, there appears to be little interest in the country often described as the Northern Hemisphere's only Third-World nation.

Scotland and Wales are also problematic since in 2,000 years they have managed to produce only bagpipes, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and one of a half dozen or so James Bonds. David Geffen has already contacted Ballmer about buying the Isle of Wight "for sentimental reasons -- it's one of the last places where we saw Jimi live (or alive for that matter) ..."

The Isles of Scilly, the Hebrides, and the island groups of Orkney and Shetland are expected to be sold in a package to Steve Case, who will turn them into New Age medicine resorts for people "who realize that sunshine is a suspected carcinogen."

"It will be a relief to deal with the Queen and Gordon Brown instead of that Jerry Yang, who was really starting to piss me off," Ballmer might have told the AP, but didn't. "At least when the Queen talks about the 'royal we,' I know who she means."

With a takeover of this magnitude, there will undoubtedly be layoffs to eliminate the redundancies between Microsoft's 59 million employees around the world and the British citizenry.

"I'm afraid that we will have to job eliminate all of Lincolnshire, Cornwall, Middlesex, Anglesey, Warwickshire and Fife," said a human resources matron who spoke off the record since revealing her name would result in seven trips through the paddle wheel and a parking spot all the way over at the Eastside Hospital. "We'll keep London, Penzance, Ipswich and York on, but only as part-time workers."

Corporate strategic planners are also eyeballing British Overseas Territories to outsource menial tasks like quality control, speeding up Vista and customer support. "The Cayman Islands could come in pretty handy, too," says one senior-level financial officer.

Reaction in the U.K. was one of resignation. "Microsoft, Google what's the difference? As long as they leave the pubs open till 11 pm."

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