The New York Times is reporting the Microsoft and GE (NBC specifically, who teams up with Microsoft for MSNBC) briefly toyed with the idea of a joint bid for Dow Jones (publisher of the Wall Street Journal). This would have been an interesting move, pitting them against Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. and their current $5 billion dollar bid for the company.

Microsoft ultimately rejected the idea and NBC decided to drop it as well, but the thought of Microsoft buying The Wall Street Journal shows just how crazy the mergers and acquisition market is becoming. Everything is for sale, and everyone is a buyer.

Google bought DoubleClick supposedly so Microsoft couldn’t buy them. Microsoft came back and bought aQuantive to try and stay competitive with Google (and presumably so Google couldn’t buy them down the road). Now we have Microsoft toying with spending at least another few billion (just weeks after they spent $6 billion in cash for aQuantive) to buy Dow Jones presumably just so News Corp. couldn’t, giving Fox another weapon against MSNBC…

Companies are out there dropping billions of dollars (or at least thinking about it) just to prevent their competitors from doing the same.

Want to make a lot of money? Start a company that sounds like something one of the huge corporations would buy – you’ll probably get an offer sooner or later from someone potentially just interested in getting to you before a rival does.

The potential acquisition, The Wall Street Journal, has more.