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Years of Search and Destroy Get Microsoft Back to Yahoo

New Yahoo CEO opens door for search deal, another shot to catch Google

By Clay Dillow,  Newser Staff

Posted Jan 16, 2009 11:00 AM CST

(Newser) – A new CEO at Yahoo has many speculating Microsoft will renew its bid for Yahoo’s Web-search unit, the Wall Street Journal reports. But Microsoft’s quest isn’t a mere attempt to better compete with Google in the $12.3 billion paid-search market; it’s the rectification of years of missed opportunities and the killing of its own inner Google nearly a decade ago.

Microsoft purchased a paid-search company called Keywords in 1998 only to shut it down in 2000. In 2003, Microsoft balked at buying Overture, a search company Yahoo later purchased for $1.8 billion. Microsoft tried to buy Overture back (by buying Yahoo) for $50 billion last year. Now, rather than run “the risk of some things not happening,” CEO Steve Ballmer says, “we’re letting more flowers bloom.”

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer delivers the keynote address Jan. 7, 2009, at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer delivers the keynote address Jan. 7, 2009, at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.   (AP Photo)
This Jan. 12, 2009, photo shows new Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz at the company's headquarters in Sunnyvale, Calif.
This Jan. 12, 2009, photo shows new Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz at the company's headquarters in Sunnyvale, Calif.   (Yahoo)
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Good ideas are usually better done quickly than slowly, so it would probably be better for both us, and certainly for Yahoo, if we were to do it sooner than later.
- Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO, on a potential deal with Yahoo

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