Their names alone make the two companies look like a match, and they’ve been thinking things over since November of 2007.  That’s where we run into the first problem, however, with a formal release stating, "HLTH announced today that it has not yet been able to reach agreement . . . on mutually acceptable terms for a merger and that it plans to continue negotiations for a short period of time."

Then, "[a]fter such period, the process is expected to conclude, whether or not an agreement is reached.  There can be no assurance that a transaction will be agreed upon or ultimately consummated."

Hardly sounds promising, does it?  Getty Images is stuck in a similar situation.  And then there’s Yahoo, which is in the middle of Microsoft’s acquisition attempt.

Strangely enough, though, there appears to be a connection between Yahoo’s and WebMD’s fates.  In regards to the latter, Rafat Ali reports, "Part of its lower outlook include its display advertising deal with yahoo, where it has a ‘more conservative outlook…based on the potential acquisition of their business.’"

Still, the resolution WebMD-HLTH relationship is probably of less importance than the other deals mentioned in this article; as things stand, HLTH already owns 84 percent of WebMD.