Consummation at last?
It's being widely reported that the on again, off again search deal between Microsoft and Yahoo!, designed to enable both to better compete with dominant search market leader Google, will finally be concluded today, according to widespread reports
Allthingsd.com reported late yesterday that the deal would be concluded in the next 24 hours. It said Microsoft search technology would be used on Yahoo! sites, but didn't know whether or not it would be branded ‘Bing'.
Adage.com then apparently confirmed it would, and reported that Yahoo! is likely to handle all search sales in the partnership. Allthingsd's sources then told it that Yahoo! gets to keep 110 percent of all ad revenue for the first two years of the arrangement and 90 percent for the third.
The combined venture will still only have 30 percent of total search queries, compared to Google's 65 percent, but the resultant antagonistic search duopoly will guarantee stiff competition for Google from an opponent of equivalent size.
Meanwhile, recently unveiled new Twitter homepage has a decided empasis on search.
Both Microsoft and Yahoo! saw increases of a percent or two in their share prices yesterday and in pre-market trading, implying this deal was already largely priced in by investors.
