Yahoo China missing from Microsoft search deal

The search tie-up between Yahoo and Microsoft does not affect Yahoo's China properties, which are controlled by e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, the group said Thursday.

It was not immediately clear if Microsoft would seek a separate deal with Alibaba regarding Yahoo's China search engine, but the statement announcing the partnership between the two U.S. companies billed it as "global."

Microsoft and Yahoo this week announced a long-anticipated deal on Internet search. The algorithm used by Microsoft's Bing search engine is set to power Yahoo searches as well for the next ten years, while Yahoo will sell premium search advertising services for both companies, they said. In exchange for its added traffic, Microsoft will pay Yahoo an 88 percent cut of the search revenue generated on sites owned and operated by Yahoo.

But the deal does not affect Yahoo's China properties, an Alibaba spokesman said. Yahoo China is "managed independently of whatever Yahoo U.S. chooses to do," he added via text message.

Yahoo obtained a 40 percent stake in Alibaba Group in 2005. As part of that deal, Yahoo gave control of its China operations to Alibaba.

The Microsoft-Yahoo statement on the search deal said that "Yahoo will continue to syndicate its existing search affiliate partnerships," an apparent reference to Yahoo China.

A Microsoft representative declined to comment, referring to the press release for details. Yahoo did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Microsoft and Alibaba representatives did not comment when asked if the companies are in talks. But Steve Ballmer and Jack Ma, the CEOs of the two companies, have met twice in recent months. Ma and other top Alibaba executives met Ballmer during a March visit to the U.S., where they discussed potential partnerships with companies including Microsoft, eBay and Google. Ballmer later visited Alibaba's headquarters in Hangzhou, China, while visiting the city in May to announce a deal with the local government.

Alibaba operates leading e-commerce Web sites in China, including business-to-business site Alibaba.com and auction platform Taobao.

Microsoft reveals Office 2010 timing, technical preview

As expected, Microsoft on Monday revealed a test version of the next round of its Office suite of products, which will be available in the first half of 2010.

At its Worldwide Partner Conference in New Orleans, Microsoft released a preview of Office 2010 and Visio 2010 to all attendees as part of a Technical Preview program. Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 and Project 2010 are also in technical preview, but to a more limited number of participants, the company said. Another Office 2010 product, Exchange Server, has been in beta since April.

Office remains the de facto standard for office productivity among both businesses and consumers. However, companies like Google and others are trying to challenge Microsoft with free Web-based versions of applications similar to Word, PowerPoint and Excel, which make up the core of Office.

What Microsoft didn't release at the show, and what many expected, was a test preview of Microsoft's answer to these challenges - Office Web apps, a free, Web-based version of Word, PowerPoint, Excel and OneNote.

However, Microsoft did demonstrate the online suite at the conference during a keynote by Microsoft Business Division President Stephen Elop, who said a technical preview would be available in August, followed sometime after by a public beta.

Microsoft first unveiled Office Web apps at its Professional Developers Conference late last year. Many had expected Microsoft to reveal its plan for the Web-based apps sooner. However, next to its Windows OS, Office remains a primary driver of Microsoft's revenue, so the company has a vested interest in keeping Office on the desktop to cater to its install base and keep its dominant position in the market.

Customers will be able to get Office Web apps in a number of ways. It will be free for anyone who wants to use the basic version, and business customers can get a paid version that they can either run on-premise on their own SharePoint Server back-end or as a hosted service from Microsoft.

Microsoft is making the apps available in a variety of ways so hundreds of millions of users will have access to them immediately upon release, Elop said.