Yahoo! and Microsoft to Implement Search Alliance
Completion of U.S., European Review Clears Way for Agreement to Move Forward

SUNNYVALE, Calif. & REDMOND, Wash.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Microsoft (Nasdaq:MSFT – News) and Yahoo! (Nasdaq:YHOO – News) announced today that they have received clearance for their search agreement, without restrictions, from both the U.S. Department of Justice and the European Commission, and will now turn their attention to beginning the process of implementing the deal.

Implementation of the deal is expected to begin in the coming days and will involve transitioning Yahoo!’s algorithmic and paid search platforms to Microsoft, with Yahoo! becoming the exclusive relationship sales force for both companies’ premium search advertisers globally. Once the transition is completed, the companies’ unified search marketplace will deliver improved innovation for consumers, better volume and efficiency for advertisers and better monetization opportunities for web publishers through a platform that contains a larger pool of search queries.

“This breakthrough search alliance means Yahoo! can focus even more on our own innovative search experience,” said Yahoo! Chief Executive Officer Carol Bartz. “Yahoo! gets to do what we do best: combine our science and technology with compelling content to build personally relevant online experiences for our users and customers.”

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer concurred with Bartz’s assessment. “Although we are just at the beginning of this process, we have reached an exciting milestone,” Ballmer said. “I believe that together, Microsoft and Yahoo! will promote more choice, better value and greater innovation to our customers as well as to advertisers and publishers.”

Consumer Search Experience

Under terms of the agreement, which was announced in late July 2009, Microsoft will provide Yahoo! with the same search result listings available through Bing, and Yahoo! will innovate around those listings by integrating rich Yahoo! content, enhanced listings with conveniently organized information about key topics, and tools to tailor the experience for Yahoo! users.

Yahoo! will focus on providing a compelling and innovative search experience that allows people to find and explore the things, people and sites that matter most to them. While Microsoft will provide the underlying platform, both companies will continue to create different, compelling and evolving experiences, competing for audience, engagement and clicks.

Transition Timeline

Yahoo! and Microsoft will work with advertisers, publishers and developers on a customized plan designed to make the transition as efficient and seamless as possible. Both companies will begin working closely with most partners well in advance of their planned transition to the Microsoft platform and will communicate important information to partners about the transition periodically via phone, email, webinars and a newly created website at www.searchalliance.com.

The companies will begin the transition of algorithmic search and have set a goal of completing that effort in at least the United States by the end of 2010. The companies also hope to make significant progress transitioning U.S. advertisers and publishers prior to the 2010 holiday season, but may wait until 2011 if they determine that the transition will be more effective after the holiday season. All global customers and partners are expected to be transitioned by early 2012.

Customer Relationships

Once the transition is in place, Yahoo! and Microsoft will each represent and provide customer support to different advertiser segments. Yahoo!’s sales team will exclusively represent and support high volume advertisers, SEO and SEM agencies, and resellers and their clients. Microsoft will represent and support self-service advertisers.

Regulatory Summary

Although the transaction previously was cleared by regulators in Australia, Brazil and Canada, the terms of the agreement required clearance by U.S. and European regulators before it could commence. Meanwhile, Microsoft and Yahoo! continue to work with regulators in Korea, Taiwan, and Japan to ensure that they have all relevant information necessary to evaluate the transaction before the deal commences in those specific jurisdictions.

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I have been using Smart Money to pay (via mobile-to mobile transfer) for goods I buy on ebay and to sell cellphone load to my friends and officemates.

A friendly customer care representative at Shangri-La mall assisted me in placing my replacement request, and I received my new Smart Money card after around a week. The first thing I noticed was that it didn’t look like the one being advertised, and it had a MasterCard Electronic logo instead of MasterCard. The last two digits of my Smart Money account number also changed.

When I activated the new card, the customer care officer on the phone assured me that the new Smart Money number printed on my card and the one from the lost card belong to a single account. She told me to just disregard the old account number and start using the new one.

I was glad that I didn’t have to wait long for it and that I could use it to withdraw money from any ATM.

Despite the disclaimer “Valid only where MasterCard Electronic is accepted” printed on my card, I still tried to use it on a website that requires MasterCard. As expected, it was declined.

I decided that I need to get another Smart Money card — this time the Mastercard version, which begins with 5299-67. The FAQ page on the Smart Money site says: “You can apply for a Smart Money MasterCard even if you already have a Smart Money MasterCard Electronic. To get your Smart Money MasterCard, please visit the nearest Smart Wireless Center.”

The same page also states that “a maximum of two (2) Smart Money MasterCards/Accounts may be linked to your Smart mobile phone.” Smart’s official account on Twitter, @SMARTCares, also told me in a direct message that “linking of 2 Smart money accnts to ur SIM is possible.”

So the next day, I went to the Smart Wireless Center at Gateway mall in Cubao. I was surprised when the customer care officer told me that I could no longer apply for another card since I already have an account linked to my SIM. He said I need to have another SIM card to apply for a new Smart Money account. But I didn’t want to buy a new SIM card and maintain a new Smart Buddy prepaid account. I asked if they could just unlink my existing Smart Money account from my SIM, and the reply I got was negative.

I consulted @SmartCares on Twitter again, and I was asked how many Smart Money accounts (active and inactive) do I own. I replied I have only one. However, discussing detailed problems such as this on Twiter was a bit difficult, so I called the Smart Money hotline and explained my problem.

If I could not apply for a new one, I told the custumer care officer, may I request that my MasterCard Electronic card be upgraded to the MasterCard version? The person on the phone cannot seem to differentiate MasterCard from MasterCard Electronic. I think she even thought that I just wanted to have the new design on my card. (I actually want both the new design and the online shopping functionality.) Upgrading my card is not possible, she said.

She also clarified that there can indeed only be one Smart Money account for each SIM card. I think Smart should rewrite the vague statements on the FAQ.

When I asked if we could just destroy the current account so I could apply for a new one, she said I should fax a letter and some required documents to 8457770. I will do as advised and see what will happen.

By the way, this problem reminds me of my Smart TextMail predicament. Through the years, I’ve been mostly satisfied with Smart’s mobile services (not including SmartBro). However, I wish Smart can solve little problems such as this.

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Yahoo! Southeast Asia is looking for a Commissioning Editor to help support the production of English-language custom-branded micro-sites.

You’ll be required to identify and commission bloggers/writers to produce a variety of articles ranging from finance to event guides. That means you’ll need both an extensive list of contacts as well as a broad knowledge of various subjects.

The role also requires you to have strong editing skills to draw out a distinct and engaging editorial voice to satisfy the Yahoo! audience. Just as important — you need to be able to recognize this quality in other people’s writing.

Given the high expectations of our users, the role requires a professional with at least five years in an editorial role.

The job will also involve:

- Identifying strong bloggers and building a strong relationship with them
- Assessing pitches from bloggers
- Editing article submissions
- Commissioning photographers and illustrators
- Issuing contracts to bloggers
- Paying bloggers

The ideal candidate will have the following skills:

- More than 5 years in an editorial role, preferably in the magazine industry
- Strong relationships with prominent bloggers
- Ability to write and re-write in an engaging style
- Strong copy editing skills, knowledge of AP style is preferred
- Strong attention to detail
- Nurturing skills to help develop bloggers

In terms of personality, we’re looking for someone who is able to juggle multiple assignments and roll with the punches. You must be able to work independently. You need to be comfortable with technology and internet publishing tools, and if not, you should at least be a quick learner.

Interested?

Please send your resume and a cover letter to:

Alan Soon
Managing Editor
Yahoo! Southeast Asia
Email: alansoon@yahoo-inc.com

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• /posts/posts-default.php for ad on the homepage
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Yahoo! Southeast Asia is looking for an energetic social media producer to draw, connect and interact with users through new channels such as Twitter and Facebook. This position will be based in Manila.

As part of your daily responsibilities, you will be at the forefront of driving our news articles, blogs, discussions, polls and community activities through social media networks with the goal of attracting a wider audience to Yahoo!.

You must have at least 3-5 years of editorial experience at a newspaper, magazine, wire service or online media site and be able to work under a tight deadline. Blogging and multimedia experience is also a must.

An established personal online brand is an ideal. As a power user in social media, you must have at least 300 followers on Twitter, at least 200 connections on LinkedIn and at least 400 friends on Facebook.

You need to have a passion for social media and a thorough knowledge of the industry. You will be expected to flag trends and be aware of new social media sites on the horizon.

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An update on Palm’s official blog introduced the Pixi:

“All the power of Palm webOS — including multitasking activity cards, Palm Synergy, intuitive notifications, and universal search — will soon be available in a striking new form factor. Palm Pixi — due on the Sprint network in time for the holidays — is Palm’s thinnest phone ever.”

This appears to be the same device previously called Palm EOS, Castle, Pixie, Mini Pre, Palm Pre Mini, and Pre Lite.

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Read the full press release below for more details:

Microsoft, Yahoo! Change Search Landscape

Global Deal Creates Better Choice for Consumers and Advertisers

SUNNYVALE, CA and REDMOND, WA — 29 July, 2009 — Yahoo! and Microsoft announced an agreement that will improve the Web search experience for users and advertisers, and deliver sustained innovation to the industry. 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.

For Web users and advertisers, this deal will accelerate the pace and breadth of innovation by combining both companies’ complementary strengths and search platforms into a market competitor with the scale to fuel sustained development in search and search advertising. Users will find what they care about faster and with more personal relevance. Microsoft’s competitive search platforms will lead to more value for advertisers, better results for web publishers, and increased innovation and efficiency across the Internet.

Under this agreement, Yahoo! will focus on its core business of providing consumers with great experiences with the world’s favorite online destinations and Web products.

“This agreement comes with boatloads of value for Yahoo!, our users, and the industry. And I believe it establishes the foundation for a new era of Internet innovation and development,” said Yahoo! CEO Carol Bartz. “Users will continue to experience search as a vital part of their Yahoo! experiences and will enjoy increased innovation thanks to the scale and resources this deal provides. Advertisers will also benefit from scale and enjoy greater ease of use and efficiencies working with a single platform and sales team for premium advertisers. Finally, this deal will help us increase our investments in priority areas in winning audience properties, display advertising capabilities, and mobile experiences.”

Providing a viable alternative to advertisers, this deal will combine Yahoo! and Microsoft search marketplaces so that advertisers no longer have to rely on one company that dominates more than 70 percent of all search. With the addition of Yahoo!’s search volume, Microsoft will achieve the size and scale required to unleash competition and innovation in the market, for consumers as well as advertisers.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said the agreement will provide Microsoft’s search engine, Bing, the scale necessary to more effectively compete, attracting more users and advertisers, which in turn will lead to more relevant ads and search results.

“Through this agreement with Yahoo!, we will create more innovation in search, better value for advertisers, and real consumer choice in a market currently dominated by a single company,” said Ballmer. “Success in search requires both innovation and scale. With our new Bing search platform, we’ve created breakthrough innovation and features. This agreement with Yahoo! will provide the scale we need to deliver even more rapid advances in relevancy and usefulness. Microsoft and Yahoo! know there’s so much more that search could be. This agreement gives us the scale and resources to create the future of search.”

“This deal fits the long-term strategic direction of Yahoo! to remain the world’s leading online media company and Carol Bartz has the full and unanimous support of the Yahoo! Board behind this deal,” said Roy Bostock, chairman, Yahoo! Inc. “This is a significant opportunity for us. Microsoft is an industry innovator in search, and it is a great opportunity for us to focus our investments in other areas critical to our future.”

The key terms of the agreement are as follows:

• The term of the agreement is 10 years;
• Microsoft will acquire an exclusive 10 year license to Yahoo!’s core search technologies, and Microsoft will have the ability to integrate Yahoo! search technologies into its existing web search platforms;
• Microsoft’s Bing will be the exclusive algorithmic search and paid search platform for Yahoo! sites. Yahoo! will continue to use its technology and data in other areas of its business such as enhancing display advertising technology.
• Yahoo! will become the exclusive worldwide relationship sales force for both companies’ premium search advertisers. Self-serve advertising for both companies will be fulfilled by Microsoft’s AdCenter platform, and prices for all search ads will continue to be set by AdCenter’s automated auction process.
• Each company will maintain its own separate display advertising business and sales force.
• Yahoo! will innovate and “own” the user experience on Yahoo! properties, including the user experience for search, even though it will be powered by Microsoft technology.
• Microsoft will compensate Yahoo! through a revenue sharing agreement on traffic generated on Yahoo!’s network of both owned and operated (O&O) and affiliate sites.
  • Microsoft will pay traffic acquisition costs (TAC) to Yahoo! at an initial rate of 88% of search revenue generated on Yahoo!’s O&O sites during the first 5 years of the agreement.
  • Yahoo! will continue to syndicate its existing search affiliate partnerships.
• Microsoft will guarantee Yahoo!’s O&O revenue per search (RPS) in each country for the first 18 months following initial implementation in that country.
• At full implementation (expected to occur within 24 months following regulatory approval), Yahoo! estimates, based on current levels of revenue and current operating expenses, that this agreement will provide a benefit to annual GAAP operating income of approximately $500 million and capital expenditure savings of approximately $200 million. Yahoo! also estimates that this agreement will provide a benefit to annual operating cash flow of approximately $275 million.
• The agreement protects consumer privacy by limiting the data shared between the companies to the minimum necessary to operate and improve the combined search platform, and restricts the use of search data shared between the companies. The agreement maintains the industry-leading privacy practices that each company follows today.

The agreement does not cover each company’s web properties and products, email, instant messaging, display advertising, or any other aspect of the companies’ businesses. In those areas, the companies will continue to compete vigorously.

The transaction will be subject to regulatory review. The agreement entered into today anticipates that the parties will enter into more detailed definitive agreements prior to closing. Microsoft and Yahoo! expect the agreement to be closely reviewed by the industry and government regulators, and welcome questions. The companies are hopeful that closing can occur in early 2010.

The companies have established a website at http://www.choicevalueinnovation.com to provide consumers, advertisers and publishers with additional information about the benefits of the agreement.

Conference Call – 5:30 a.m. PDT, Wednesday, July 29

Yahoo! and Microsoft will host a conference call with Yahoo! CEO Carol Bartz and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to discuss the agreement at 5:30 a.m. Pacific/8:30 a.m. Eastern Time today. To listen to the call, please dial 1-866-515-2908 in the U.S. and Canada; +1-617-399-5122 international, reservation number: 47968026. A live webcast of the call can be accessed through Yahoo!’s Investor Relations website at http://yhoo.client.shareholder.com/results.cfm. The companies have also established a website at http://www.choicevalueinnovation.com to provide consumers, advertisers and publishers with additional information about the benefits of the agreement. In addition, an archive of the webcast will be available through the same link. An audio replay of the call will be available for two weeks following the conference call by calling 1-888-286-8010 in the U.S. and Canada; +1-617-801-6888 international, reservation number: 91217610.

Non-GAAP Financial Measures

This release refers to operating cash flow (operating income before depreciation, amortization of intangible assets, and stock-based compensation expense, or OCF), which is a non-GAAP financial measure. The most comparable GAAP measure is income from operations. The estimated annual OCF benefit of $275 million included in this press release is the estimated annual benefit in income from operations of $500 million less approximately $225 million of estimated annual savings in depreciation, amortization and stock-based compensation expense.

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Anyone with a valid email address ay now download the Palm Mojo SDK at http://developer.palm.com.

“This is one more step in delivering webOS to all developers and providing the tools they need to build great applications for Palm phones,” Chuq Von Rospach, Palm’s Developer Community Manager, said in a blog post.

Meanwhile, Motion Apps has announced that its Classic Palm OS emulator for webOS devices will soon be able to run HotSync.

As this developed, Apple released an iTunes update that update “disables devices falsely pretending to be iPods, including the Palm Pre.” Thus, Palm Pre users will no longer be able to sync their music files with iTunes.

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The widely anticipated webOS smartphone be available initially in the United Kingdom, Ireland and Germany on the O2 network, and in Spain on the Movistar network, according to a Palm press release.

Palm’s official blog also carried the announcement.

“Europe continues to be an important region for Palm, and we’re proud to work with O2 and Movistar to spread the excitement Palm Pre has already ignited in North America,” said Jon Rubinstein, chairman and chief executive officer of Palm.

In Canada, Palm Pre will be offered by Bell Mobility “in the second half of 2009.” As of this writing, there is no word yet on its availability in Asia.

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To solve “vanishing load” scam, NTC must lower rates, ban spam — TXTPower

The National Telecommunications Commission must “do more” than extend the expiry of prepaid load to decisively end the issue of “vanishing prepaid load” that is bedeviling the country’s more than 70 million mobile phone subscribers.

In a press conference, consumer advocacy group TXTPower.org Inc. (TXTPower) said that “the absurdly short expiry load, arguably the shortest in the whole world, is the least of consumers’ problems. To solve “vanishing load”, the NTC must exercise its powers to immediately lower rates for cellphone calls, text messaging and other mobile phone services. The NTC must also crack down on telcos and content providers that abuse their licenses by sending millions of spam messages,” said TXTPower president Anthony Ian Cruz.

“Prepaid load quickly gets lost or stolen because of the high cost of placing cellphone calls. The NTC, unfortunately, has not exercised its powers to reduce rates in favor of the public. All it does is to bless the promotional offerings of telcos that may be pulled out whimsically and capriciously,” said Cruz.

Cruz said that Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile’s case illustrates the problems faced by consumers daily.

“The Senate President is lucky. He immediately got a refund even without asking for it,” said Cruz, adding that “but for the rest of us whose prepaid load are stolen by the millions through high prices, spam and short expiry, we don’t have any recourse.”

Cruz said TXTPower is now studying ways for consumers to get refunds from the “vanishing loads”.

Make “unlimited calls, texting” permanent services

According to TXTPower, the NTC should compel telcos to finally offer “unlimited calls” and “unlimited texting” as permanent, not promotional, offers.

“The telcos have recovered the old investments on which the current pricing for calls, text and other services had been based. It is about time the NTC and the government compel these telcos to make the public benefit through ‘unlimited calls’ and ‘unlimited texting’ which are standard offers of many telcos across the world,” said Cruz.

“This should not prejudice moves towards per-six second charging, which has long been demanded by consumers,” said Cruz.

The NTC, Cruz explained, is “so addicted to its false belief that the industry’s deregulation means that it has no powers to champion consumer welfare and that it should only support the telcos.”

“It is thus no surprise that consumers are left to fend for themselves, so much unlike the Senate President, who has mobilized the power of the Senate and his office to lay bare the issues,” said Cruz.

Consult consumers

TXTPower also called on Senate President Enrile and Senator Mar Roxas, whose committee leads the Senate hearings on telco issues, to consult with consumers and to include consumers in the technical working groups that are being formed.

“The NTC, for instance, has routinely failed to adequately inform consumers and end-users of public hearings on its draft circulars, including the latest one on the expiry of prepaid load,” said Cruz.

“Only the telcos were consulted,” said Cruz.

TXTPower Action Center, Kabataan YouTube video

TXTPower vowed to keep the pressure on government to act on consumer demands through various means.

Kabataan partylist congressman Mong Palatino today unveiled a YouTube video encouraging students and youth to report their complaints to the NTC and to TXTPower.

The Computer Professionals Union (CPU) meanwhile also launched today the TXTPower Action Center which aims to receive consumer complaints through the following contact points: Website http://www.cp-union.com/txtpowercenter, Text 0907-1134503 and Landline (02) 4134196.

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