After a long battle, it seems that Qwest pulled out of the MCI auction leaving Verizon as the winner by default. Verizon's offer ($8.54 billion) was roughly 13 percent below the $9.85 billion offered by Qwest. After the MCI board rejected the higher Qwest bid for the fourth time in a row, the Denver-based company announced that " It is no longer in the best interests of shareowners, customers and employees to continue in a process that seems to be permanently skewed against Qwest".  The key question is what is next for Qwest.  The company might target assests that giants Verizon and SBC might be forced to sell to mitigate government concerns that the mergers will be detrimental to competition.  Other alternatives include going after companies selling services to businesses, pursuing a merger with Sprint or becoming itself an acquisition target.