Face-to-Face Meeting Between Microsoft and Yahoo!

According to a report on the All Things Digital Website, preliminary discussion between Yahoo! and Microsoft about a search partnership, now have taken place.

The report said that Talks have included a face to face meeting between Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. All Things Digital Website stressed that the talks are centered on what sort of advertising and search partnership might be possible.

Steve Ballmer has been saying for months he would be open to a search deal, while Carol Bartz is not so excited for such an agreement, in her far more limited comments on the subject.
In Past few months, Microsoft's position has strengthened somewhat, with Redmond having hired a number of Yahoo's top search individuals, including Qi Lu. Few business deals have also been grabbed by the company aimed at boosting its query share and begun testing of its next-generation search product, code-named Kumo.

But the software maker also needs the share boost that Yahoo could give it. Microsoft is preparing to back Kumo's launch with a big ad push and would benefit from spreading those costs over more than its current single-digit share of the market.

Yahoo, meanwhile, has held more than double Microsoft's share, but could be headed for a decline after losing several toolbar deals to Microsoft and Google. A report on Thursday said the lost deals could cost the company as much as three percentage points of share, or 15 percent of its search volume.