How the Microsoft search deal is reshaping Yahoo’s business, for better or worse

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Yahoo today reported fourth-quarter profits that met Wall Street’s relatively modest expectations, but the numbers also show how Yahoo’s 2009 search agreement with Microsoft is changing the financial picture for the Sunnyvale, Calif., company — and how uncertain the long-term outcome remains. The background: Under the agreement, Microsoft operates the underlying search and search advertising… Read More…

Microsoft beats estimates even as Windows profits fall 11%

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Microsoft’s quarterly profits topped Wall Street’s expectations, thanks in part to growth in the company’s server and business software divisions, but the company’s Windows unit continued to feel the effects of a sluggish personal computer market. The company’s revenues for its fiscal second quarter, ended Dec. 31, were $20.89 billion, up 5 percent, according to… Read More…

Jerry Yang is leaving, and Wall Street says Yahoo!

Jerry Yang

Nearly 17 years after co-founding Yahoo, Jerry Yang is resigning from the board and “all other positions with the company,” according to an announcement this afternoon. Yahoo shares are up more than 3.5 percent in after-hours trading. His departure, effective today, follows the recent appointment of a new CEO, Scott Thompson, to replace Carol Bartz,… Read More…

Yahoo acquisition targets may include TripAdvisor, WebMD, InfoSpace and others

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Yahoo has been discussed as possible acquisition bait for some of the bigger media and technology companies on the planet. But the Silicon Valley stalwart may go on a buying spree of its own if it unloads its Asian assets, including a 40 percent stake in Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba. Yahoo recently said that its… Read More…

Yahoo picks PayPal president Scott Thompson as new CEO

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Well, at the end of the day and after weeks of speculation, Yahoo didn’t go with a former Microsoft or ex-Amazon.com exec for the CEO post. Instead, the struggling Silicon Valley search and media company picked a guy with ties to PayPal. Yahoo today announced that it has named Scott Thompson as CEO. The former president… Read More…

How this tiny Seattle startup is connected to the chatter around Yahoo’s next CEO

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Yahoo is in hot pursuit of a new CEO. And as the one-time tech leader scans the landscape of available talent, it need not look much further than Seattle online advertising startup AdReady. Kara Swisher at All Things D has been floating a number of possible candidates for the post, noting that Yahoo is looking… Read More…

Yahoo targeting Madrona’s Brian McAndrews, Hulu’s Jason Kilar and others for CEO post

Brian McAndrews

Venture capitalist Brian McAndrews, the former CEO of Seattle online advertising powerhouse aQuantive, and Jason Kilar, a former Amazon.com executive who now runs Hulu, are among the technology executives being targeted by Yahoo for the CEO post. Kara Swisher at All Things D — who is well-sourced on Yahoo matters — reports that the company’s… Read More…

Microsoft Bing makes headway in 2011, almost matching Yahoo in market share

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Microsoft’s Bing search engine is still No. 3 in the U.S. search market, but not by much. The Redmond company came in at an even 15 percent of the market in November, just below the 15.1 percent posted by Yahoo for the month, according to the latest data compiled by the comScore Networks research firm… Read More…

Reports: Microsoft involved in bid for Yahoo stake

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Microsoft is aiming to own a minority stake in Yahoo as part of a bid led by private equity firm Silver Lake, according to Bloomberg News and the New York Times. The consortium is offering as much as $3 billion for a 15 percent stake in the Internet company, Bloomberg says. No comment from Microsoft… Read More…

Microsoft takes closer look at Yahoo deal, signing privacy pact

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Microsoft has signed a non-disclosure agreement allowing it to examine Yahoo’s finances as it considers participating in a buyout of the Internet company, according to a New York Times report this morning, citing an anonymous source briefed on the situation. The Redmond company’s main goal appears to be preserving the value of its search and… Read More…

Google boosts lead in search, now accounts for 66 percent of queries

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Microsoft is still trying to carve off market share from Google in search. But, at least during the month of October, it had very little luck. According to a new report by comScore, Google increased its lead ever so slightly in the U.S. over Microsoft, Yahoo and AOL. Google’s search share increased by 0.8 percent… Read More…

Microsoft, AOL and Yahoo to cooperate on display ads

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Microsoft, AOL and Yahoo this afternoon announced a deal to sell display advertising inventory on each other’s sites. The unusual collaboration between the web giants will “dramatically improve the process of buying and selling premium online display inventory,” giving advertisers the ability to reach larger audiences more efficiently, the companies promise in a joint news… Read More…

Google holds steady with 65 percent of U.S. search queries

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Google continues to hold a dominant lead in the Internet search business, with two reports out this week highlighting the Mountain View, California company’s strong position. According to comScore, which released its search share ranking report on Tuesday, Google accounted for 65.3 percent of searches in the U.S. during the month of September. That compares… Read More…

Report: Microsoft weighs another Yahoo acquisition bid

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[Update: Bloomberg News reports Microsoft is "nowhere close" to making a Yahoo bid. AllThingsD's Kara Swisher likewise throws cold water on the idea.] It’s déjà vu all over again — the tech story line that doesn’t seem to want to go away. Reuters reports this afternoon that Microsoft is contemplating another acquisition bid for Yahoo, after running… Read More…

Morning Radar: iPhone 5 craziness, PS3 legal alert, more on Windows 8

Via Boy Genius Report

A few of the stories and headlines catching our attention this morning …  Rumors about Apple’s upcoming iPhone 5 launch are spreading fast and furious after a case maker posted and then pulled apparent images of the device. Bottom line, the next iPhone will be thin and tapered at the edges, with an 8 megapixel… Read More…

Report: Microsoft, AOL and Yahoo to cooperate on ads

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Microsoft, Yahoo and AOL plan to work together to allow their respective sales forces to sell leftover online advertising inventory on each other’s sites, teaming up in an attempt to compete more effectively with Google, reports AllThingsD.com’s Peter Kafka this morning. Microsoft and Yahoo already partner on search technology and search advertising, but this would… Read More…

Bing continues to chip away at Google’s dominance in search

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Google is still the dominant player when it comes to Internet search queries, but Microsoft’s Bing continues to gain share in part through its alliance with troubled Yahoo. That’s the latest finding from Experian Hitwise, which released a report today showing that Bing-powered searches (including those counted through the partnership with Yahoo) gained three percent… Read More…

Report: Bartz out as Yahoo CEO

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Carol Bartz, the fiery Yahoo leader who entered the company into an alliance with Microsoft in an attempt to challenge Google in the Internet search market, is no longer the company’s CEO, reports AllThingsD.com’s Kara Swisher this afternoon, citing unnamed sources at the company. No comment on the report yet from the Sunnyvale, Calif., company. Swisher… Read More…

Who wants Hulu?

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This could be a jam-packed month in technology dealmaking, and it’s not just because of the drama unfolding over AT&T’s bid for T-Mobile USA. Nope, another interesting development is occurring in the board rooms of some of the biggest media and technology companies as bidders line up for Hulu. Hulu is an unusual asset —… Read More…

Judge tosses antitrust claims over Microsoft, Yahoo spam filters

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A federal judge in California has dismissed a pair of cases that were filed last year against Microsoft and Yahoo by a bulk emailing firm that argued the companies violated antitrust laws when their spam filters blocked its emails. Microsoft’s SmartScreen spam filter technology started to block messages from the company, Holomaxx, after the Redmond… Read More…