Well, well, well, that financial imp at Microsoft–CFO Chris Liddell–pulled a fast one on Wall Street and turned in first-quarter earnings that blew away all estimates and even whisper numbers.

BoomTown liveblogged the morning conference call, which took place at 7:30 am PT–thanks for the Kiwi-laced wake-up call, Chris!

While revenue and net income in Q1 were down significantly from the same period a year ago, they were not as bad as investors expected.

Which apparently passes for terrific these days!

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Uh-oh, Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz was expected to appear on the Internet giant’s third-quarter earnings call, but she apparently “came down with something,” according to CFO Tim Morse.

BoomTown is sending over chicken soup right now, but let’s hope she gets her vaccinations tout de suite!

Thus, no sassy quotes or cursing, but a very earnest Morse, who sounded like he was once a Boy Scout.

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In one week, Yahoo will report its third-quarter earnings, after the market closes.

And so far, its stock is showing signs that investors are hoping for better days ahead for the Internet giant.

Other good news: A pair of bullish analyst reports yesterday.

But, a spate of executive departures, with chances of more to come, are worrisome.

As is the excessive yodeling Yahoo is once again encouraging.

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Yesterday, BoomTown wrote about the status of the regulatory investigation for the Microsoft-Yahoo search and online advertising pact, which most expect to get approved.

One of the few vocal critics of the deal, though, is Jeffrey Chester, the executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, a public interest group, who lobbed MicroHoo some important questions.

Here are the answers.

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Unlike the gripping back and forth of the fight over Yahoogle last year, the approval process for the search and online advertising partnership of Microsoft and Yahoo is chugging along slowly but surely as the Justice Department has deepened its investigation by reaching out to a broad range of publishers, advertisers, public interest groups and rivals for comment recently.

But, so far, there is still no significant external challenge to the MicroHoo deal, even from Google, the likeliest company to try to scuttle or, at the very least, slow down the deal.

In other words: Zzzzzzzzzzz…

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According to sources close to the situation, AOL has been busy selecting the board for the company, which is still set to spin itself off by year’s end–even as it slows down a decision on a new search deal with either current partner Google or a more emboldened Microsoft.

AOL is using Spencer Stuart in the search for directors, led by well-known headhunter Jim Citrin, sources said, and the company has already settled on several outside candidates.

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Another high-ranking Yahoo exec is leaving–this time, Jim Schinella, the company’s SVP for corporate partnerships.

Schinella announced the move internally last week, telling staff he would stay on until the end of the year.

Located in New York, he has been focused on strategic deals with big Yahoo partners.

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Although it is not a particular surprise, because Microsoft and Yahoo execs had previously said they expected as much, the Justice Department lobbed in a “second request” for information about the search and online advertising partnership the pair struck earlier this summer.

A Microsoft spokesman confirmed the request to BoomTown.

“As expected Microsoft and Yahoo received an additional request about the agreement, as we said when this agreement was announced,” said Microsoft’s Jack Evans. “We anticipated this deal would be closely reviewed and we continue to be hopeful that it will be approved by early 2010.”

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After all the investor hubbub over the oh-no-they-didn’t deal between Yahoo and Microsoft starts to die down a bit, the pair are now embarking on the path that is the only way toward proving the efficacy of them joining together.

That would be getting a variety of state, federal and international regulators to say yes to the wide-ranging online advertising and search arrangement they announced last week so they can start making it work.

According to sources at both companies, a variety of filings will be made this week, including one to the Securities and Exchange Commission that should provide more details of the partnership.

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Meet Satya Nadella, the man in charge of search technology for the just-struck partnership with Yahoo.

How the search business of Microsoft evolves, improves and, most of all, out-innovates–especially in the face of heretofore withering competition from search behemoth Google–is going to be a big factor in the success of the deal with Yahoo.

In fact, Yahoo has essentially put its search technology eggs in Microsoft’s work-in-progress basket, which must make a series of innovative leaps, or else.

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While at Microsoft HQ last week, right after the online advertising and search deal with Yahoo was struck, BoomTown interviewed a passel of Microsoft execs, including Online Audience Business SVP Yusuf Mehdi, who has been a key player in the many–and mostly disastrous–attempts that the software giant has made to form some sort of alliance with Yahoo over the years.

While Wall Street threw raspberries at the Silicon Valley icon for the deal, Microsoft got kudos for grabbing a large piece of share that it could use in its ongoing battle with archrival Google.

In this video interview with me, Mehdi defended it as a “win-win”–what else is he going to say?–for both Yahoo and Microsoft.

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One of the reasons Wall Street investors have gone sour on Yahoo’s stock since its online advertising and search partnership was struck with Microsoft was a comment that CEO Carol Bartz made at the seventh D: All Things Digital conference in late May.

In an onstage interview with me, I asked Bartz about what it would take to do a deal.

She answered quite emphatically that “if there’s boatloads of money, and there’s the right technology and there’s the right information we’d have, sure.”

Here’s the video of that, as well details about how the deal talks went bad at D7 too.

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Isn’t it ironic that Yahoo once employed–and for a very long time–top search techie Qi Lu and here he was on stage at the Financial Analyst Meeting at Microsoft HQ in Redmond, Wash., after having just scooped up that business for the software giant.

Lu, who is now president of the Online Services division at Microsoft, was not generous with the details, although he did say making the partnership work was his No. 2 priority after Microsoft’s own search business.

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BoomTown was so glad we had this time together with Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, just to have a laugh or sing a song about a major search and advertising deal.

I liveblogged the conference call, which I updated as it happened.

Did Ballmer scream and jump up and down? Did Carol say something naughty?

Read on!

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Finally.

After a decade of competition, several years of push-me-pull-you partnership talks among innumerable execs come and gone and even a hostile takeover that went bad, Yahoo and Microsoft have officially struck a landmark 10-year search and online advertising deal.

While it is in no way as sweeping as some had expected, the deal marks the most important union of digital companies in recent times.

“In simple terms, Microsoft will now power Yahoo! search while Yahoo! will become the exclusive worldwide relationship sales force for both companies’ premium search advertisers,” said the two companies in a joint press release.

Here are the particulars.

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