microhoo

Tapping into a new revenue source, Ubuntu Linux's corporate backer Canonical has signed a partnership to use Yahoo's search results by default in the version of Firefox it ships.

The move takes a page from the Mozilla playbook. Firefox is set up by default to send search traffic to Google, and the majority of Mozilla's revenue--$79 million in 2008--is a portion of any resulting search-ad revenue.

"Canonical has negotiated a revenue sharing deal with Yahoo! and this revenue will help Canonical to provide developers and resources to continue the open development of Ubuntu and … Read more

Why would anything between Microsoft and Yahoo go quickly?

After months of awkward teenage romance, the two companies finally announced that they had reached a deal in July.

However, the two sides are apparently still working out the terms of what they agreed to in the "binding letter agreement" reached in July. In a regulatory filing on Wednesday, Yahoo said it and Microsoft need more time to iron out a definitive accord.

"The Letter Agreement specified that the parties would execute definitive agreements by October 27, 2009, but given the complex nature of the transaction, there remain … Read more

After more than a year of back and forth, Microsoft and Yahoo have finalized a deal to share search and advertising resources. Reporter Tom Krazit talks about what it will mean for the two companies, Google, and everyday users.

Also in today's podcast: fake antivirus software has infiltrated millions of PCs; Psystar hires Jammie Thomas-Rasset's lawyers to fight Apple; an Internet scuffle over Rorschach inkblots; and more of today's top headlines.

Today's stories:

Yahoo, Microsoft reach search, ad deal

Report finds fake antivirus on the rise

Psystar hires Jammie's lawyers in fight with Apple

A Rorschach cheat sheet on Wikipedia?… Read more

Investors panned Yahoo's search and advertising deal with Microsoft on Wednesday, sending Yahoo's stock down 12 percent. IDC's analysts called it a "strategic mistake."

But here's what's good about it: After a year and a half of public scrapping, behind-the-scenes drama, and dysfunctional communications through leaks to the press, Microsoft and Yahoo now can get back to business.

The Microhoo concept has been reduced from a giant cloud of uncertainty hanging over both companies to merely a complicated partnership between two rivals with Google as a common foe. The range of possibilities for … Read more

Microsoft's search deal with Yahoo is the culmination of months of well documented negotiations, but in many ways, it is just the beginning of the long road ahead.

In the coming months, Microsoft and Yahoo will not only have to win regulatory approval for the deal, but also figure out how to bring together disparate approaches to the search market.

Microsoft has spent much of its energy in the last couple years refining its core technology, improving in vertical categories, and rebranding its Web search under the Bing moniker. Yahoo, meanwhile has put a lot of energy into tools … Read more

As finalization of a Microsoft-Yahoo search deal reportedly nears, activist investor Carl Icahn--who played a key role in trying to broker a broader partnership between the companies last year--is speaking out in favor of such an agreement.

"I've been a strong advocate of getting a search deal done with Microsoft," Icahn, who owns about 5 percent of Yahoo and sits on its board, told Reuters in a phone interview Friday. "It would enhance value if a deal got done, because of the synergies involved."

According to an All Things Digital report late Thursday, several top … Read more

It's unclear whether they brought the requested "boatloads of money," but several top Microsoft executives are in Silicon Valley to try to finalize a search deal with Yahoo, according to an All Things Digital report late on Thursday.

According to the report, the two sides are "down to the short strokes" after years of excruciatingly well publicized on-again, off-again talks. A deal could come within a week, All Things Digital said.

Included in the Microsoft entourage, according to the report, are three of its top online executives: Yusuf Mehdi, Satya Nadella, and Qi Lu.

Yahoo … Read more

Updated 10:30 a.m. PDT with comment relating to Yahoo's new management.

Throughout 2008's on-again, off-again talks between Yahoo and Microsoft, many financial analysts declared the belief that some sort of deal--either Microsoft acquiring Yahoo outright or later just its search business--was a matter of when, not if. One report released Tuesday, though, shows at least one change of view.

Jim Friedland of Cowen & Co. said the relative financial results of Yahoo and of Microsoft's online-services business (OSB) gives Microsoft a bad bargaining position. Specifically, he said operating revenue from advertising dropped 16 percent annually … Read more

Discussions between Microsoft and Yahoo about a search partnership, while still preliminary, have taken place in recent weeks, according to a report on the All Things Digital Web site.

The talks have included a face-to-face meeting between Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz, the report said. AllThingsD stressed that the talks are centered on what sort of search and advertising partnership might be possible, rather than an all-out acquisition.

Ballmer has been saying for months he would be open to a search deal, while Bartz has appeared less than eager for such an arrangement, in her far more limited comments … Read more