If you were eager to find out the results of the Bing/Yahoo Search partnership, unfortunately, you will need to wait another month as both parties extended the original 30 day deadline to review and possibly revamp the 2009 agreement by an additional 30 days.
From the WSJ:
“Under a broad 10-year deal struck in 2009, Microsoft controls the technology underpinning searches across both companies’ sprawling universe of websites. Yahoo at times has chafed at elements of the partnership, which generates 37% of its revenue.
The 2009 contract allowed for the partners to re-examine the deal at its halfway point, which passed in February, and gave a 30-day window for further negotiation. The companies agreed to a new deadline of April 24, Yahoo said in a regulatory filing Friday.”
And from their filing:
“[T]he Company, in addition to other termination rights, had the right to terminate the Search Agreement, during the 30-day period following February 23, 2015, if the trailing 12-month average of the Company’s revenue per search in the United States (the “U.S. RPS”) on Yahoo Properties is less than a specified percentage of Google’s trailing 12-month estimated average U.S. RPS, excluding, in each case, mobile devices.
Marissa Mayer, Yahoo Chief Executive, is known to not be happy with the deal, which came about under then-CEO Carol Bartz, and has been working on tech of their own, such as Yahoo Gemini, to potentially head up their own search engine once again. But at this time, it is not believed the technology is anywhere close to being in place.
“ Neither Yahoo or Microsoft alone can hope to attract the number of searches executed by Google. Before Yahoo and Microsoft teamed up in search, the two companies together handled about 28% of Web searches in the U.S. In February, their combined market share amounted to 32.6% of U.S. desktop searches, according to comScore Inc.”
Microsoft and Yahoo declined to comment on the negotiations. Although, the original deal failed to include mobile searches, another area where Mayer has been asserting Yahoo’s independence.
And so the wait continues.
