On February 1st, Yahoo! received an unwanted bid from Microsoft in the amount of $44.6 billion. Yahoo! has asked advisers Goldman Sachs to evaluate its options for maintaining independence. And $44.6 billion is too low because of regulatory and valuation issues. Possibilities could include monetizing Yahoo!'s holdings in China and Japan. Outsourcing Search to Google could eliminate Yahoo!'s current Search development and marketing costs. Money will be earned from Google's advertising click fees. Yahoo! CEO Jerry Yang reportedly prefers focusing on content and the advertising network. Yahoo!'s shareholders and analysts recommend more aggressive actions to realize the value in assets. But Yang prefers building 'one big open (advertising) exchange and Search is only a piece of that.' In addition, Yahoo!'s marketshare of U.S. Searches during December measured 17.7 percent while Google's totaled 56.3 percent, according to Nielsen Online. A Sanford Berstein analyst has advocated outsourcing Search to Google, and estimated valuation of Alibaba in China and Yahoo! Japan at $17.6 billion, or $13.24 a share and 55 percent of Yahoo!'s current market cap. In the wake of poor financial performance and 1,000 recent job cuts at Yahoo!, shareholders may be willing to accept Microsoft's offer. One technology fund chief investment officer (CIO) believes the offer is fair at the current share price, and Yahoo! should accept. However, another option for maintaining its independence would be to enact a stockholder rights plan from 2001 that allows shareholders to buy extra shares when someone buys more than 15 percent of Yahoo!. The increased number of shares would definitely dilute Microsoft's ownership and possibly render the cost of the deal unaffordable. A Techcrunch blog rumor states that Rupert Murdoch's News Corp may counterbid.