Quote of the Day: Yahoo's Yang Now Prefers a Microsoft Sale

“To this day, I have to say that the best thing for Microsoft to do is to buy Yahoo. I don’t think that is a bad idea at all…at the right price, whatever the price is, we are willing to sell the company.”

-Jerry Yang, speaking at the Web 2.0 Summit.

Yang’s comment during an on-stage interview with John Battelle was astonishing, for a number of reasons. First, Jerry Yang and his team fought Microsoft’s early aggressive advance tooth and nail, and while they’ve since said they were open to a deal all along, no senior Yahoo executive has said such a marriage would be the best outcome for the company.

Also, to me at least the statement suggests a deal to buy AOL from Time Warner is not imminent. I wasn’t there, so I don’t have the full context, but I can’t imagine why Yang would express enthusiasm for one massive merger while finalizing an unrelated one. Yang declined to comment on the AOL talks.