• Bloomberg News, Monday, September 8, 2008 11:30 AM

After Microsoft walked away from the Yahoo deal, many analysts and critics projected that the software giant would wait for Yahoo's share price to fall back below $19 per share and then swoop in to buy the company for less than it originally offered.

Late last week, Bloomberg News asked Microsoft CFO Chris Liddell if the company had plans to do this. His response: "You never say never, I can never say that, but it's so close to negligible.'' Why, because "we continue to value Yahoo as a declining asset,'' Liddell said. "At some stage it just makes no sense anymore. So you never say never about these acquisitions, but the time came and went.'' Yahoo meanwhile, fell below $18 per share on Friday, its lowest value in five years.

So, what's next for Microsoft? Liddel said the company isn't pursuing any big acquisitions right now, and is focused instead on a large-scale stock repurchase to boost the company's share price. "We've done as little as $2 billion to $3 billion and as much as $7 billion to $8 billion,'' Liddell said today. "That's probably a realistic range for us to do just from a trading volume point of view.''

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