Is Apple Really Considering Buying Yahoo?

A report from Scotland On Sunday mentioned that Apple and News Corp were considering bids to buy Yahoo and that Yahoo’s management would prefer to be rescued by Apple rather than Microsoft.

If Microsoft was to buy Yahoo, it would bring its “Search” market share from 4% up to… 17%. The issue is that the combination of both companies might not make their respective search algorithms better than Google’s, at least not anytime soon. The question is: how would a buyer add value to Yahoo?

Although anything can happen, there seem to be much more downside for Apple than upside, if it were to rescue Yahoo. If Apple can’t turn Yahoo, it would be an incredible drag on the whole company – not worth the risk in my opinion, but hey, may be Apple can rename Yahoo “iYahoo”, make it shiny and bring shareholder value. What do you think?

Update 2/4 4:28pm PT: Rupert Murdoch confirmed that News Corp won’t make a bid for Yahoo. Analysts expect the Microsoft bid for Yahoo to be approved by the regulators.