Maybe this whole Microsoft-Yahoo thing is finally going to happen. More than 18 months after Microsoft made its ill-fated acquisition bid for Yahoo, the companies have completed negotiations for an online search and advertising deal, according to reports by AdAge.com and the Wall Street Journal's AllThingsD site.
The agreement is expected to be announced Wednesday, according to the reports. Microsoft's underlying Bing search technology would be used on both sites, and Yahoo would handle search-advertising sales, using Microsoft's advertising technology.
"Yahoo is likely to take on exclusive representation of Bing inventory to eliminate channel conflict and complexity for advertisers, but not before both sides unwind the thousands of advertiser relationships and proprietary systems through which many large advertisers buy search ads," AdAge reports. "Microsoft's AdCenter is expected to be the sales-technology platform."
AdAge notes that the companies expect regulators to scrutinize the deal.
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has said repeatedly that joining forces with Yahoo would give the Redmond company the scale it needs to compete effectively with Google. Combined, the two companies would have nearly 30 percent of the U.S. search market, compared with 65 percent for Google, according to the comScore research firm.
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