In 2010, Yahoo and Microsoft began a 10-year search partnership in an attempt to compete with Google’s dominance in the search market. Five years into the deal though, little has come of the agreement with Google maintaining its approximate two thirds of the search market and Yahoo and Microsoft keeping about one third.
The original deal was agreed upon by former Microsoft and Yahoo CEOs, Steve Ballmer and Carol Bartz respectively but with Satya Nadella now CEO of Microsoft and Marissa Mayer CEO of Yahoo, both appear to be taking advantage of the original deal’s terms which allowed them to renegotiate within 30 days of February 23rd this year.
This 30 day period has since been extended to 60 to allow both parties more time to negotiate changes or even cancel the agreement completely.
While Microsoft has declined to comment, Yahoo issued the following statement, “We value our partnership with Microsoft and continue discussions about plans for the future. We have nothing further to announce at this time.”
It is unclear if this extension is a sign of either positive or negative discussions though the reason could simply be personal as the announcement happened several days after the unfortunate passing of Nadella’s mother.
