Do Jerry and Company Understand the Art of Negotiation?

Anyone else tired of "breaking" Yahoo/Microsoft news? The New York Times is reporting that Yahoo has issued yet another infamous statement rejecting another offer from Steve Ballmer and his new best friend Carl Icahn. As usual, Yahoo held an emergency board meeting, "evaluated" the offer, and issued a statement to the media.

Don't they teach Negotiations 101 in business school anymore?

Even the youngest child knows that when you get an offer you don't like, you offer something else in response. It's called bargaining, and most people manage to do it without using the media to communicate. Yahoo knows they aren't going to see the $33 per share offer that Microsoft offered originally. They've ended up where they are now because they've overestimated their worth every step of the way, and are trashing the stock in the process. The only bumps they've seen in their stock price have been due to repeated rumors that Microsoft was coming back to the table.

There is a back-and-forth art to negotiating that seems lost on these two companies, who see much more fond of talking to the press than they do at actually doing any sort of real business. While there are some predicting that a deal will finally be reached by the end of summer, watching this just looks like two aging fighters locked in the ring. Both are getting so tired they can barely throw punches anymore, yet there's no one stepping in to declare a winner.