A deal between Microsoft and Yahoo is possible, if Ballmer and company is still interested

A possible deal between Microsoft and Yahoo could take place now that Yahoo CEO and co-founder Jerry Yang announced he will step down once a replacement can be found.

Yang will continue to work at Yahoo, a company he helped co-found, but the company will be in control of someone else. He wished to remain CEO, but Yahoo's board of directors received too much pressure from stock holders over Yang's dismal past year of service.

There is a small list of possible candidates who will take over CEO, but UBS analyst Ben Schachter believes Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer will eventually end up running the company at some point.

Read more: dailytech.com 

Labels: Jerry Yang, microsoft, Yahoo

Buys Ciao price comparison powerhouse to add to Live Search

Microsoft has bought Ciao, one of Europe's biggest price comparison engines. Designed to boost its Live Search offering, it seems Microsoft will position its new toy right up against Google's Product Search, formerly known as Froogle.

There's no getting away from it – Microsoft is still loosing badly when it comes to the search market. But instead of growing the Windows Live Search business organically, dear old Microsoft seems determined to buy elements which it thinks make sense, hence the hovering up of Multimap and now Ciao.

Full story: techradar.com 

Labels: Ciao, Froogle, microsoft

Yahoo was hit with a one-two punch Monday--first a right jab from Carl Icahn, which is calling for the removal of Yahoo's entire board, and then a left hook from Microsoft, which confirmed its support for Icahn's proxy fight and said it's interested in negotiating a deal with a "new" Yahoo board.

Microsoft, in its public statement, said it could see the value in a potential Yahoo deal, to either purchase the 'search' function with large financial guarantees, or alternatively, purchase the whole company--a been there, done that attempt with Yahoo's existing board.

Yahoo counterpunched later Monday morning, issuing a statement (given here in its entirety) expressing its interest in talking to Microsoft about a buyout of the entire company, if only someone would make an actual offer, and the right kind of offer

Full article: news.cnet.com 

Labels: microsoft, Yahoo

Microsoft couldn't get all of Yahoo, but it can still get some Yahoo employees

Microsoft may not have been able to complete the deal to buyout Yahoo, but the company has now launched a recruiting campaign aimed at Yahoo's engineers.

"There is just great search talent here," Microsoft spokesperson Doug Free said during an interview.

Microsoft has several offices in the San Francisco Bay Area, where it is now showing a renewed interest in adding office space and employees. Microsoft already has offices in San Francisco and Mountain View -- about one million square feet of office space -- and 2,000 employees.

Microsoft would have been able to add 2 million square feet of office space and an additional 5,000 employees to its Bay Area roster.

The fallout from the failed Microsoft deal has seen a number of Yahoo executives flee the company over the past several months. The Mountain View-based company also laid off 1,000 employees in February.

Read more: dailytech.com 

Labels: engineer, microsoft, Yahoo

We’ve got multiple sources at both Yahoo and Microsoft telling us that official talks are back on between the two companies. But we’re hearing something different than CNET - the talks are about a full buyout again, not a sweetened search-only deal.

The information we have is thin, but what one source is saying that Microsoft is talking a price lower than the $33 they were offering when the talks disintegrated in May. Given Yahoo’s recent share price (it’s below $21 today), and the fact that just about everyone other than their board and top execs are publicly screaming for a deal, I’m not surprised.

Full article: techcrunch.com 

Labels: microsoft, Yahoo

'It may seem counterintuitive, but ...'

Yahoo chief executive Jerry Yang has defended his company's decision to eschew Microsoft once and for all by partnering with Google.

Shortly after the deal closed on Thursday, Yang posted an article to Yahoo's Yodel Anecdotal corporate blog stating his case on why joining forces with a former rival is the right move for the company.

"We have done something important today. We are directly addressing one key element in Yahoo's strategy to lead the way in search and display," wrote Yang.

"I believe it puts us on a faster track to creating stockholder value and strengthening our advertising leadership."

Under the deal, Yahoo will allow Google to sell and display AdWords advertisements alongside Yahoo search results.

Read more: vnunet.com 

Labels: Jerry Yang, microsoft

Google executives convened an emergency meeting last night to discuss the implications of a possible revived deal between Yahoo! and Microsoft.

The pair are understood to be negotiating a deal concerning the control of advertisements that are displayed next to internet search results, a market that is dominated by Google. The joint venture could be sealed in the next few days.

Speaking at the Google Zeitgeist conference in Hertfordshire, hosted by the internet company’s founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Eric Schmidt, the chief executive, said: “After this press conference the three of us will meet and decide what our response is.”

The three companies are fighting over online advertising, which is thought to be worth about $40 billion a year and is expected to double by 2010.

Read more: timesonline.co.uk 

Labels: Eric Schmidt, Larry Page, microsoft, Sergey Brin, Yahoo

Google CEO Eric Schmidt said yesterday that he still sees Microsoft as a potent competitor, even though its concerted and often acrimonious campaign to buy Yahoo now looks like it will pass into history.

"Microsoft has been a significant competitor with Google for a very long time," Schmidt declared, in a talk with reporters just before Google's annual meeting in the Silicon Valley.

"Microsoft is a very large competitor across all facets of Google for many reasons. Applications. Search. Advertising. Display. Microsoft is well funded, clever [and] smart -- and they have a lot of advantages nobody else has," said Schmidt, according to a "live blog" transcript from the press Q&A in California, posted by Rob Hof of BusinessWeek.

Read more: BetaNews 

Labels: Eric Schmidt, microsoft, Yahoo

Now that Microsoft Corp. has walked away from its takeover bid for Yahoo Inc., the tech world is turning its focus on the Redmond, Wash. giant's next move. And for some analysts, Microsoft may still be in good shape to cut into Google's online search and advertising stranglehold without Yahoo's help.

Three months ago, Microsoft expressed its desire to stay relevant in the online market with its US $44.6 billion bid for the Web's second biggest search engine. Microsoft sits a distant third to Google Inc. in online search and also lags behind the Mountain View, Calif.-based search empire in attracting advertisers for paid search ads. But with the Yahoo sweepstakes now over (at least for now), some analysts are saying that if Microsoft can refocus on its own online efforts, it can challenge for online supremacy.

Playing to Strengths

"The problem with going after only a search business is you're fighting Google's game," Charlene Li, vice-president and principal analyst at Forrester Research Inc., said. "What Microsoft needs to do is redefine the game."

Full article: pcworld.com 

Labels: microsoft, Yahoo

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Yahoo Inc. is now more likely to outsource its search advertising to Google Inc., according to a person familiar with the situation.

Yahoo (YHOO) moved closer to the deal with Google after initial tests of the system proved promising, the person said.

Yahoo had earlier announced that it was testing Google's (GOOG) online advertising technology on a limited basis, prompting more speculation that the beleaguered Web portal was seeking a deeper partnership with Google as a way to fend off Microsoft Corp.'s (MSFT) takeover bid.

Read more: marketwatch.com

Labels: advertising, microsoft, search, Yahoo

Extended partnership gives Salesforce customers a home in the clouds, access to suite of Google offerings.

Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM) announced today that it will offer its suite of consumer relationship management (CRM) applications to businesses through the Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) Apps cloud hosting platform.

The partnership, which builds on an existing alliance between Google and the software-as-a-service (SaaS) leader, signifies an accelerated campaign to upend Microsoft’s (NASDAQ: MSFT) old-line Office productivity suite by enabling businesses to run their operations entirely in the cloud.

Heralding the expanded partnership, Salesforce CEO Marc Beniof was his usual blunt self in his assessment of the disruptive impact new models of computing will have on traditional business lines.

Read more: internetnews.com 

Labels: business, microsoft, Salesforce

A set of policy position documents reportedly authored by Microsoft made the case that Google could use DoubleClick's advertising network to peer into competitors' traffic -- a position the FTC apparently rejected last week.

Last week, The New York Times blogger Louise Story released copies of a series of documents reportedly shared between Microsoft and US Federal Trade Commission members prior to their decision on the Google + DoubleClick merger. The documents reveal that Microsoft was willing to characterize its own competitive position in the Internet advertising market, both before and after a merger took place, as tenuous and perhaps even unsustainable, in order to distinguish itself against what it described to be a larger, perhaps predatory, competitor.

Full story: betanews.com 

Labels: ads, advertising, DoubleClick, microsoft

Google Sites top property with 5.9 billion core searches

Google Sites remained the top search property among the core search engines in November, according to figures from comScore.

Some 5.9 billion core searches were conducted via Google during the month, representing 58.6 per cent share of the search market, virtually the same as in October.

Yahoo Sites ranked second with 22.4 per cent, followed by Microsoft Sites with 9.8 per cent and Ask Network with 4.6 per cent.

Read more: vnunet.com 

Labels: Ask, microsoft, search, sites, top, Web, Yahoo

Microsoft to Provide Additional $9M to International Center for Missing and Exploited Children

Three major Internet companies have settled with the Justice Department for $31.5 million for promoting illegal online gambling, a U.S. attorney in Missouri announced Wednesday.

Microsoft, Google and Yahoo will set up a fund to air public service announcements informing young people that online gambling in the United States is illegal.

Google will pay the government $3 million and Yahoo will pay $7.5 million for their participation in advertising online gambling on their search engines.

Microsoft will pay $21 million. As part of the settlement, Microsoft will also provide $9 million to the International Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

Full story: abcnews.com 

Labels: ads, gambling, microsoft, Yahoo

Is Google about to produce the next iPhone? Find out here!

Google, the internet media giant, has had a large group of engineers working on a secret project for nearly two years now. Rumors had leaked that Google was planning to manufacture a next generation of cell phones, which some observers creatively dubbed the "GPhone." Now as a new report indicates Google's true intentions, it appears that the company has not only done a good job keeping the wraps on its secret project, but that the project is much more complex than expected.

Google has been working on developing a software platform for cell phones, which it hopes will create a new business sector. It begins with the phone operating system (OS).

Full article: dailytech.com 

Labels: Google Phone, Gphone, microsoft, mobile, phone

Microsoft's Ballmer: Google Reads Your Mail
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer took a knock at one of his chief rivals during a speech to an audience in the U.K., saying Google reads customer email as part of a failed bid to drive ad-based revenue.

The software giant's chief made the remarks during a discussion about consumer software revenue models, and Ballmer used the dialogue as an entry point to take his shot at Google. The video is available to watch via the web site Mydeo.com. Ballmer made his remarks after an audience member asked him if an advertising model could support software business in the future. The CEO said a combination of models - - commercial and ad-paid - - would go forward.

"What's a good example? Will online publications be largely ad-funded as things move from the physical world to the online world?" Ballmer said. "I think the answer is yes.

Full story: crn.com 

Labels: Gmail, mail, microsoft, Steve Ballmer

27.09.2007 - Running for over a year now, Microsoft’s Live Search site has received a mini makeover, focusing on improved search results in the areas of shopping, health, entertainment and local interest.

The Microsoft Live Search site is currently at number three in the market with Google in the lead followed by Yahoo!.

Microsoft said it had used customer feedback from among its 128 million users per month to develop “richer and deeper” search results including better data extraction.

Read more: siliconrepublic.com 

Labels: live, market, microsoft, query, search, Yahoo

Only if it were worth $237 (£117) - or even $237.99 - to Google. The Redmond giant was this week in talks to acquire part of the social networking site, which Nielsen/NetRatings said on Tuesday is the most popular in the UK, with 6.5 million users (up sixfold since December), ahead of MySpace with 6.3 million (up 20%) and Bebo (4.5 million, up 64%).What Microsoft is after is a slice of the hottest site online, and it is prepared to pay somewhere between $300m and $500m (£125m to £250m) for a 5% stake.

That would value the site as a whole at between $6bn and $10bn - and the site says it has 42m users worldwide. The upper valuation values each of them at a tidy $238.09 each. Slightly less, now that another dozen have joined while you read this sentence.

Full story: guardian.co.uk 

Labels: Facebook, microsoft, Network, Nielsen, social

Google’s long awaited Powerpoint clone could be days away from launching, according to a report at The Inquirer.

The service is said to be called “Presently” and is based in part on code from Zenter and Tonic Systems, two companies Google acquired earlier this year.

Read more: techcrunch.com 

Labels: docs, microsoft, office, Powerpoint, Spreadsheets

Mine's bigger than yours

MICROSOFT ANNOUNCED a cunning plan to increase the storage limit on its Hotmail accounts from 2GB to 5GB. The move comes shortly after Google began offering extra storage on its Gmail accounts, at a price.

Google currently offers 2888MB of storage space for free. The figure on a Gmail account used to be constantly increasing and Google encouraged users never to delete email.

Read more: theinquirer.net 

Labels: Gmail, mail, microsoft, storage