A Fool Looks Back

Wife Swap: Dot-Com Edition
All of this square-dancing is making me dizzy. I figured that Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO) and Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) would work out their differences, even after volleying breakup letters earlier this week, but I didn't think it would take this long for them to start seeing other people.

The impasse that had lasted for more than two months suddenly deepened, as each party tried its best to make the other jealous. Yahoo! turned to Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) -- Microsoft's mortal enemy these days -- to test outsourcing its paid-search ads to the industry leader. Then came the rumored dance partners, with reports swirling of Yahoo! in talks with AOL, and Microsoft warming up with MySpace.

What kept all of these potential suitors so disinterested until now? They certainly had enough time to jump into the fray. The original Microhoo announcement came at the end of January. But now that Microsoft has threatened to pull its offer in a couple of weeks, time's running short. I bet you'll see some interesting developments in this story throughout April.

Quick hits
A few more of the market's stories, in brief:

• In more concrete matchmaking news, EMC (NYSE: EMC) is acquiring Iomega (NYSE: IOM) in a $213 million deal. Iomega is still publicly traded? It may be a shocker to longtime Fools, who might remember the company as an early favorite around here in the mid-1990s. Most investors forgot about Iomega after its once-revolutionary Zip drives were supplanted by CD-Rs and flash memory drives. Apparently, Iomega is still making enough backup solutions to appeal to a data-storage giant like EMC. It's just a shame that Iomega couldn't go out on top.
• Jim Cramer -- yes, that Jim Cramer -- finally came to terms with TheStreet.com (Nasdaq: TSCM). He will stick around for at least another three years at the financial website that he helped launch. His original deal actually ran out back in December, but it was temporarily extended twice before Cramer and the company finalized a deal. Why the delay, Jimbo? You take a split-second to drum up a buy or sell thesis during Mad Money's lightning round. This deal really shouldn't have taken that long.
• Washington Mutual (NYSE: WM) scored a $7 billion balance sheet infusion, yet it also slashed its dividend and warned of a whopping $1.1 billion quarterly loss. I keep thinking of those WaMu commercials, with all of those bankers aghast over all of the free perks that WaMu gives its customers. Guess who's laughing now?

Until next week, I remain,
Rick Munarriz