Yahoo and Microsoft are poised to finally sign the definitive agreement that will govern the complex and far-reaching search and online advertising partnership they struck in late July, said sources close to the situation.

If all goes well, the various Microsoft and Yahoo execs–who have been ferreted away over the last weeks, busy dotting all the i’s and crossing all the t’s in the massive document–could even turn in the delayed deal homework to their bosses for signature by the end of the week.

Read More »

In what should come as a shock to almost no one, the detailed negotiations to complete the Microsoft and Yahoo search and online advertising final agreement are more complicated than its authors anticipated and are taking longer than expected to complete.

Relax, folks–they’ll get done.

But here’s a more important thing that should wrap up sooner than later: Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz’s gibes about former CEO and co-founder Jerry Yang’s tenure.

Read More »

To be totally honest, BoomTown was a little late getting a request in to Microsoft to host a Windows 7 Launch Party.

Thus, no “special Signature Edition of Windows® 7 Ultimate and your very own Windows® 7 Party Pack to share with your guests” for a shindig at my house!

So, because we admire the very gumption of Microsoft marketing types trying to make a software launch festive, which many have mocked mercilessly, the Swisher boys and I pressed on and created our own party to mark the launch of the much anticipated operating system software.

Read More »

BoomTown happens to be in the Seattle area today, deep in the heart of Microsoft territory, which apparently is now living in a state of “new normal” according to a declaration by the software giant’s CEO, Steve Ballmer.

Well, it all looks the same to me, but that’s what he said in an “executive e-mail” post yesterday titled “The New Efficiency” about the changes brought on by the econalypse.

Of course, it’s also a new buzzword for the company’s upcoming Windows 7 rollout, complete with a Web site.

Now, that’s efficient!

Meanwhile, Microsoft revealed in a proxy filing that the direct compensation of its top execs in 2009 had been slashed.

Read More »

Yahoo introduced its new $100 million marketing and branding campaign in New York today with “It’s Y!ou” as the new motto, making use of the Internet giant’s famous exclamation point and aimed at its customers.

Sure, it’s clever and all, but All Things Digital has come up with a much better advertising idea focused on Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz, a sassy and ofttimes salty exec whose pugnacious utterances have become legend quickly.

Read More »

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.

Read More »

BoomTown is spending the day at Microsoft HQ in Redmond, Wash., interviewing a passel of execs about the Yahoo online advertising and search partnership.

But, while here, I have not been able to resist trotting out this very funny puppet video by 1938 Media of sweat-stained Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer gone wild, screaming about how he smoked the Yahoo partnership, to every Softie I see.

Because I am that sensitive.

Read More »

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.

Read More »

As the wind-up act for the Financial Analyst Day at Microsoft today, its CFO, Chris Liddell, took the stage to try to put a shine on weak financial results that the software giant recently reported.

“So, what genetic disposition do you need to be a CFO? Essentially, you need to be miserable, you need to be the sort of person who takes drinks away from people at the end of a party,” said Liddell, in his jaunty New Zealand-Hobbit accent. “So, you know, my colleagues who have been giving you drinks all day, have told me to come out here and take most of them away from you.”

Which was ironic, since the all-day event for media and Wall Street analysts ended with cocktails.

Read More »

While Microsoft COO Kevin Turner did a kind of modified cheerleading act at Microsoft’s annual Financial Analyst Meeting, Entertainment and Devices President Robbie Bach played the teenage boy and Chief Research and Strategy Officer Craig Mundie the voice from the future.

It included Bach playing ball with Microsoft’s new motion-sensing, controllerless Project Natal and Mundie introducing a very creepy digital assistant with more than a passing resemblance to HAL from “2001: A Space Odyssey.”

Read More »

First up at Microsoft’s Financial Analyst Meeting today, as you might imagine, is CEO Steve Ballmer, who is as bouncy and braggy as I have ever seen him, probably because he is fresh from getting his mitts on a long-sought-after prize–the search business of Yahoo.

But, while Wall Street thinks Microsoft made out well in the deal, the opinion about Yahoo’s side of the deal has been not so positive, with its shares down another five percent today already, after plummeting 12 percent yesterday.

Thus, Ballmer to the rescue!

“This is the one that stuns me, that people haven’t figured it out,” said Ballmer. “It’s sort of, like, unbelievable.”

Read More »

The fun never stops at Microsoft, it seems.

Well, not fun–more like a long march of khaki-clad Softies.

They will be on display bright and early this morning at the company’s annual Financial Analyst Meeting, a cavalcade of top execs at the tech giant blabbing away.

Big topics? I am interested in the recent billion-dollar revenue miss in earnings and, of course, more details about the Yahoo search deal.

BoomTown will be there covering it in person, natch!

Read More »

With upward of two-thirds of the search market, depending on what survey you use, one would not imagine that Google would worry too much about any kind of hookup of Microsoft and Yahoo.

Think again.

Sources at Google said the company is bracing for a more robust rival, which will force the company to compete and innovate more aggressively.

They add that Google will likely try to keep a low profile at first in opposing the deal announced today, positing that regulators have the same opinion about fewer competitors in the market as they did when opposing a similar Google-Yahoo search deal last year.

Read More »

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!

Read More »

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.

Read More »