05 June 2009 | Author: L. Sutherland News Editor

Bartz says Yahoo! doesn't need Microsoft

Go-getting Yahoo! CEO Carol Bartz has distanced the company from rumours of a Microsoft partnership. She is adamant that Yahoo! Does not need to work with the software behemoth and can instead function better as a search service alone.

According to Brand Republic, Bartz said that the potential savings from such a search deal could be as much as $700 million when speaking at the Bank of America and Merrill Lynch 2009 US Technology Conference. However, she went on to explain that in her opinion a deal was entirely unnecessary.

She said: "Yahoo actually has a bright, bright future, probably a cleaner and simpler future without thinking there's any Microsoft connection. We'd be better off if we'd never heard the word Microsoft."

The straight talking CEO certainly has a point - the extended to'ing and fro'ing between Yahoo! and Microsoft has helped the standing of neither. And despite continuing to push forward and drive innovation amidst the speculation, who knows in what position the company would now be standing if not for the distraction?

On the other hand, perhaps the fact that Yahoo! had to fight to prove to shareholders that it was right to resist takeover or partnership was responsible for some of the many initiatives the search engine presented recently.

With the launch of Bing - Microsoft's rebranded search service - the computing giant is hoping to gather a little more weight in the search market. But Bartz think that as far as Yahoo!! is concerned, it's better off going it alone. She doesn't see the launch as a serious threat and believes that people will experiment with Bing out of curiosity but they will retain their established search habits. She added:

"What's really necessary is that we continue to grow our audience."