Facts about Yahoo Corp

NEW YORK, USA: Microsoft Corp offered to buy Yahoo Inc for $44.6 billion in cash and stock, seeking to join forces against Google Inc in what would be the biggest Internet deal since the Time Warner-AOL merger.

Microsoft offered to buy Yahoo for $31 per share, a 62 percent premium over Yahoo's previous closing stock price.

The following are some key facts about Yahoo:

1994: David Filo and Jerry Yang, Doctoral candidates in electrical engineering at Stanford University, found Yahoo in a campus trailer in February as a way to keep track of their personal interests on the Internet. The site starts out as "Jerry and David's Guide to the World Wide Web".

The name is an acronym for "Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle," but Filo and Yang insist they selected the name because they liked the general definition of a yahoo -- rude, unsophisticated and uncouth.

1994: Yahoo celebrated its first million-hit day that fall, translating to almost 100 thousand unique visitors.

1995: In March, Filo and Yang incorporate the business and meet with dozens of Silicon Valley venture capitalists. Sequoia Capital, whose most successful investments included Apple Computer, Atari, Oracle and Cisco Systems, agreed to fund Yahoo in April with an initial investment of nearly $2 million.

1995: Company secures second round of funding in the fall from investors Reuters Ltd. and Softbank. Launches a highly successful IPO in April 1996 with a total of 49 employees.

2001: Laid low by the tech crash, Yahoo in May brought in Terry Semel, a Hollywood deal-maker, when the company was at its nadir. Yahoo rebounded under his leadership, but 2006 – a year expected by many to be Yahoo's best -- turned out dismally. The company's brand-advertising growth fell and Yahoo lost share of search-related advertising to Google.

2002: Yahoo acquires Inktomi, which many believed had the second-best search technology on the planet. In mid-2003, Semel paid $1.4 billion for the search-driven ad pioneer.

2004: Before Google went public, Yahoo considered buying its then-smaller foe for a few billion dollars, but Semel balked at paying that much.

Yahoo had little success with its much-anticipated Hollywood entertainment unit. Also, its employment listings site, HotJobs, did not succeed in gaining market share.

2007 acquisitions

April 30 -- Says plans to buy rest of Right Media Inc for about $680 million. In October 2006, Yahoo had picked up a 20 percent stake in the privately held company, which focuses on direct market advertising to social networks like MySpace.

June 21 -- Says would acquire sports media site Rivals.com, without disclosing terms. Rivals.com, a web-site for fans of college and high school teams, generates revenue from its more than 180,000 subscribers, advertising and e-commerce conducted on the site.

Sept 4 -- announces deal to buy U.S. online ad network BlueLithium for $300 million in cash. BlueLithium's technology tracks consumer behavior when users switch sites, helping businesses to deliver more relevant ads.

Sept 17 -- says it would purchase e-mail software maker Zimbra for about $350 million. Zimbra makes Web-based mail, calendar and collaboration software, which would help strengthen Yahoo Mail.