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So much has changed in a year, but one inanimate object remains the similar. Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, still covets Yahoo’session certain quantity of the Internet search and advertising market. While every outright acquisition is off the syllabus — and has been since last spring — Ballmer remains interested in a search partnership, as his company has been powerless to gain reason on market-leader Google. In fact, because that Microsoft proposed its acquisition nearly a year ago, it has lost more than a point of Internet search-market share while Google has gained five points. Last week, as Microsoft announced its first companywide layoffs, Ballmer said the company would continue to hire in strategically important areas such as Internet search. “I think I’ve been quite open about the fact that I think there are advantages for consumers, advertisers, Microsoft and Yahoo through a search partnership; and we’d like to do one,” he said. And with recently made known leadership at Yahoo in the living body of Carol Bartz, whom Ballmer said he knows well and was “glad to see at the helm of Yahoo,” who knows that which the next year will hold? “If it’s congruous, I’m sure we’ll hold the lawful discussion,” Ballmer related.

We plotted some key moments in the Microsoft-Yahoo acquisition dance that captured an herculean amount of attention in the financial and technology worlds during the latest 12 months. Microsoft’s incipient proposal to buy Yahoo came to of little weight early on Feb. 1, 2008. (Note: This image is obviously a bit fuzzy. Here’s a full-sizedPDF of the chart.)


Original text: http://blog.seattletimes.nwsource.com/techtracks/2009/01/26/reviewing_a_year_of_the_microsoftyahoo_saga.html