There is no doubt that Microsoft is pulling out the stops with its launch of its renovated search service, now called Bing, with $100 million in marketing dollars.

But, besides lifting the software giant’s share of the search market in early surveys, has it also given Microsoft’s stock an added boost?

Yes, indeed, but only just over the last 30 days.

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Former top Yahoo advertising exec David Karnstedt, who has been parked at a Silicon Valley venture firm since he left the company, has been named president and CEO of Efficient Frontier.

Interestingly, another former Yahoo exec, Ellen Siminoff, has also been CEO at the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based search engine marketing firm. She is now chairman.

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It used to be, many years ago, that longtime Silicon Valley tech exec Eric Schmidt could work up a very significant head of steam when talking about the thuggish monopolistic practices of Microsoft and its negative impact on the tech industry.

And, for the most part, Schmidt was dead right.

Thus, BoomTown is both gobsmacked and a bit in awe that Schmidt–now sitting atop at the high-tech pig pile as CEO of the powerful search giant, Google–can, with a straight face, make the argument that everyone is wrong to be nervous about its deal with Yahoo to serve some of its search ads, even though the pair make up more than 80 percent of the search market.

Still, at a press conference yesterday, Schmidt went on the offensive to defend the Yahoo deal, which is set to begin in a few weeks, in a most peculiar way.

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