Wow. From the Associated Press:

Microsoft Corp. has pounced on slumping Internet icon Yahoo Inc. with an unsolicited takeover offer of $44.6 billion in its boldest bid yet to challenge Google Inc.’s dominance of the lucrative online search and advertising markets.

That’s nuts. I don’t use Yahoo, but I’m already seeing it infiltrated by little rainbowy butterflies spreading craplets.

Via Daring Fireball.

Update: The more I think about this, the bigger it is. I was just thinking about Yahoo search mostly. What’s going to happen with Flickr if this goes through? YUI? I can’t imagine Microsoft not screwing these things up. I’m not trying to bash Microsoft, they just don’t have a very good track record. Hotmail anyone? Gruber has some more articulate thoughts (as usual).