Microsoft Moves for Yahoo Search

Oct. 27 2008, Published 7:07 a.m. ET

It took all of one day for Microsoft's proposed partnership with Yahoo to catapult into a new proposal by which Steve Ballmer's company would pick up the entirety of Yahoo's Web-search arm, according to reports. Google, you'll remember, is also in discussions for search-advertising partnership with Yahoo, and it seems Microsoft realized that—all things being relatively equal—Yahoo's unlikely to ever choose to team with Microsoft over Google in an Internet-based venture. "Activist" investor Carl Icahn is of a similar mind—he's said to prefer Google over Microsoft in the case of anything less than a Microsoft takeover. That egg attack Ballmer withstood yesterday? The barrage is not likely to stop anytime soon.