Report: Microsoft, Yahoo talking again

From InfoWorld: Microsoft and Yahoo have begun talking again and this time the focus is on search and advertising deals and not acquisition, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.

The talks come as little surprise because Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has said repeatedly as of late that he thinks a deal with Yahoo makes sense. His stance, however, is a 180-degree turn from November when he declared "acquisition discussions are finished."

But last month, Ballmer said he had talked with new Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz once and his expectation was that there was a good opportunity for a partnership. He said the scale that Yahoo operates on is compelling to Microsoft.

In February, he told financial analysts, "You all know that I would like to figure out how to pool somehow Microsoft and Yahoo. I'm not talking about doing an acquisition, blah, blah, blah, back to search deals, blah, blah, blah, I don't know if anything is going to happen...but the fact of the matter is, these two [Microsoft, Yahoo] should somehow figure out how to get together and create more competition for [Google]."

Ballmer admitted that Google has roughly three times as many advertisers on its platform, and those advertisers are bidding on a "far broader" set of keywords, and that Google has a better database of ad listings.

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