The Microsoft Yahoo deal has finally been given the go ahead by the European and US regulators the BBC has reported. The European Commission found that the deal – which was announced back in July 2009 – “would not significantly impede effective competition”.
The deal between Microsoft and Yahoo has been agreed for 10 years and will see Microsoft’s Bing power Yahoo’s search engine as they look to finally challenge Google stranglehold in the search industry. Steve Ballmer – Microsoft chief executive – has said that the deal will “promote more choice, better value and greater innovation to our customers as well as to advertisers and publishers”.
After 7 months the Microsoft-Yahoo deal has finally been given the green light
However even with this tie up Microsoft still have quite a mountain to climb. According to the BBC the European Commission found that Microsoft and Yahoo together still only equates to less than 10% of the search engine market with Google having an astonishing 90% so Microsoft certainly have a challenge on their hands. Ten years is a long time in online terms and you would believe that Microsoft should be able to increase their market share in this time; however toppling Google still seems a stretch to far…