It's been fairly quiet on the Yahoo! Inc. [YHOO]-Microsoft Corp. [MSFT] front, even too quiet for some, who speculate the silence could mean the two sides are talking. We still see the possibility of Jerry Yang making one last-gasp effort to float an alternative to a deal with Microsoft, but remain in the camp that a deal gets done because there truly aren't any better alternatives out there, and in situations like this, the pursuer typically gets the target.

But it's still unclear how exactly the two sides eventually will come together and at what price. There's the camp that feels Microsoft does not need to bid against itself and raise its $31 a share offer price, while others see plenty of wiggle-room for Microsoft to do just that, particularly so it can get the deal done sooner rather than later. Microsoft could also go hostile and attempt to take over Yahoo!'s board, though they may be having trouble finding people willing to get in the middle of things.

What seems to make sense, at least to us, is that the two sides come together on a friendly agreement, with Microsoft raising its bid (or changing its $31 a share cash-and-stock offer to all cash) to make things a little easier and for Jerry Yang to save (some) face. With Yahoo! so far not able to come up with a better alternative, the likelihood of this scenario playing out is increasing, but we still expect a few fireworks as things play out. - David Shabelman

See March 27 post from Seeking Alpha
See March 27 story from the New York Post
See March 26 post from All Things Digital
See March 25 post from Tech Confidential