Ballmer still fancies buying something

THE SHY and retiring, softly spoken, CEO of Microsoft, Steve "sounds of silence" Ballmer has told Reuters that he is still shopping and has not given up hope that he will be able to buy something big quite soon.

Steve has been rebuffed by Yahoo and failed to beat Google in a bidding war for an Internet advertising company. In whisper, Uncle Vista told the throngs that his chequebook is still open.

On stage at the Software 2007 conference in Silicon Valley, Ballmer indicated that he sees mergers as a way to fill gaps or enter new markets, mostly throughsmall deals, but larger deals are also "conceivable," he said.

He declined to say how much we was prepared to spend to get hold of a company, but said that anything was possible.

Ballmer said he had bought, "15 to 20 companies" over the last year and he still had not left the mall. µ

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Reuters story