More praise for Monkey Boy today as Andrew Ross Sorkin of the New York Times uses his “Dealbook” column to cut Ballmer a new one, in a column titled “How Not to Make a Deal.” Sorkin says Ballmer “looks like all hat, no cattle,” and says “when Yahoo’s Jerry Yang refused to knuckle under, Mr. Ballmer just … waffled.” Sorkin says that while Yang comes off looking like an idiot, so does Ballmer, who “miscalculated from the start” and “misread his own shareholders, who hated the deal.” Money quote: “But most of all, Mr. Ballmer didn’t realize — though he had been warned by his advisers — that when you make a blockbuster unsolicited offer, you must be prepared to win.”

Right on, Andrew Ross. Or, as the Bard might have put it:

To buy, or not to buy: that is the question.

Or, as the Bard actually did put it:

And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.

Namaste, William Shakespeare. I honor the place where your words and events four centuries later become one.