On Monday, Yahoo rejected Microsoft buyout offer of $31 a share for being too low. So what would be the right price for the Internet portal? $35, $40, $50?

Well for Sun CEO, Jonathan Schwartz, the magic number for the deal to come true is $60, valuing the eventual deal at... over $80 billion... about the size of a Nintendo but half of Google's!

I'm not sure Steve Ballmer at Microsoft would agree (or even care what Schwartz think), but Yahoo's CEO and his board might! And even for the largest tech company in the world, $80 billion is no chump change.

And just one last thing to put this whole thing in perspective: Microsoft has about $40 billion in cash *but* lost almost $40 billion in shareholder value since its bid for Yahoo two weeks ago. So, 40+40=80... we're almost there! And if this doesn't work, Yahoo might consider merging with MySpace, as recent rumours suggest.

Finally, if Microsoft acquires Yahoo. Schwartz does not see the combined company as a competitor, either in the data centre, storage... in the enterprise market in general. Even today, Microsoft and Yahoo, which is a consumer company, seperately are not really competing with Sun.