Yahoo! Inc, making the most of what could be the final months of the pooling of interests accounting method, has snapped up another company; this time buying Online Anywhere for $80m in Yahoo stock. The two are already partners, as they signed a deal in April for Yahoo to use Online Anywhere’s Author Once, Run Anywhere reformatting technology to deliver its content to handheld computers and TV-based web appliances (04/06/99).
Yahoo is keeping up with the current trend of internet content companies looking to move their content beyond their PC installed base, demonstrated by America Online Inc’s announcement last month of a set of partners to enable it to deliver its content over TV set-top boxes by next year (05/12/99). The pooling of interests accounting method enables companies to write-off purchased research and development, thus lessen the effect of goodwill charges on the usually small or negative earnings. The financial accounting standards board (FASB) has said it pLANs to scrap the accounting method by next year. Online Anywhere is a two year-old Motorola Ventures-funded start-up.
