Microsoft Corp said on Monday that it reached a Web search deal with Sun Microsystems Inc, the latest partnership struck by Microsoft aimed at chipping away at the dominance of Google Inc.
As part of this agreement, users of Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser who download Sun's Java technology platform will be given the option to also download the MSN Toolbar from where users can directly access the company's search engine.
Earlier this year, Microsoft also reached an agreement with Hewlett-Packard Co, the world's largest personal computer maker, to place a toolbar on new PCs in the United States and Canada starting in January.
"This deal will expose Live Search to millions more Internet users and drive increased volume for our search advertisers," said Yusuf Mehdi, senior vice president of the Online Audience Business at Microsoft, in a statement.
Striking distribution deals are one part of Microsoft's strategy to close the gap on market leader Google. Microsoft said competition for these types of deals is intense and that the company had to outbid several rivals for the Sun deal.
Sun said the Java platform sits on more than 800 million personal computers around the world, or on 91 percent of Internet-connected PCs worldwide. The Java Runtime Environment is downloaded tens of millions times every month, Sun said.
Google's U.S. Web search market share reached 63 percent in August versus a 19.6 percent for Yahoo Inc and 8.3 percent for Microsoft, according to comScore.
(Reporting by Daisuke Wakabayashi; Editing by Gary Hill)
Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSTRE4A94US20081110
Yahoo Inc. shares dived nearly 13 percent after the chief executive of Microsoft Corp. said Friday the software giant is not interested in renewing its bid for the struggling Internet company.
Microsoft's Steve Ballmer told a business lunch in Sydney that he had moved on after Yahoo rejected its takeover bid in the spring. He did suggest a partnership in the search engine market is possible.
"We made an offer, we made another offer, and it was clear that Yahoo didn't want to sell the business to us and we moved on," Ballmer said. "We are not interested in going back and re-looking at an acquisition. I don't know why they would be either, frankly. They turned us down at $33 a share."
Yahoo shares fell $1.76 to close Friday at $12.20. Microsoft shares gained 3 percent to $21.50.
Yahoo's co-founder and chief executive, Jerry Yang, said Wednesday that Microsoft should make another bid for his company, which runs the world's No. 2 search engine. His appeal came after top search engine Google Inc. backed out of an Internet advertising partnership with Yahoo to avoid a challenge from the U.S. Justice Department, which said it would sue to block the deal on antitrust grounds.
