REDMOND, Wash.–After months of fits and starts, Microsoft and Yahoo on Wednesday announced a 10-year search deal that will see the two companies join forces to take on Google.

“In simple terms, Microsoft will now power Yahoo search while Yahoo will become the exclusive worldwide relationship sales force for both companies’ premium search advertisers,” the companies [...]

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Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Yahoo’s Carol Bartz are reportedly talking about search and advertising partnerships between their respective companies, according to Kara Swisher at BoomTown.
Swisher reports:
According to a variety of sources, the talks between the pair and also other execs at both companies are preliminary and also wide-ranging, focused on what kinds of commercial [...]

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REDMOND, Wash.–At Microsoft’s TechFest, it takes a little imagination to see how the research technologies might eventually come to market.
A new video from Microsoft shows in an elegant, if utopian way, what it might look like if all of those gadgets came together several years hence. Earlier on Friday, Microsoft Business Division President Stephen Elop [...]

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Amid a wave of criticism, Microsoft is backtracking on a decision to require laid off workers to pay back money that the software maker said was in excess of its planned severance, CNET News has learned.
Over the weekend, Microsoft confirmed it had overpaid severance to some workers and underpaid others. At the time, the company [...]

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Two days after President Barack Obama, in his inaugural speech, told the country to brace itself for tough times, the head of one of the most valuable U.S. companies echoed the sentiment. “We’re certainly in the midst of a once-in-a-lifetime set of economic conditions,” Microsoft (MSFT) Chief Executive Steve Ballmer told analysts during a conference [...]

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