In a recent interview with Financial Times, Microsoft's chief executive Steve Ballmer has opened up about post-Yahoo strategy and emphasized the importance of search for the advertising business. Ballmer also indirectly ruled out rumors that Microsoft will try to somehow "make up" for the market share it could have snatched by taking over Yahoo by grabbing up smaller rivals.

Microsoft's head said buying up Yahoo would have indeed accelerated the company's growth in the search market. He said Microsoft is at fault for moving too slowly into the business, praising at the same time Google's intuition which led to the latter's dominance.

The Redmond company is certainly going to think up something big, something new, something that wasn't done this way before to catch up somehow with Google. It's their only chance for the foreseeable future. Nobody is going to give up Google unless a real incentive comes along, whether it's technical, financial, otherwise or all at once.

Meanwhile, lawmakers are questioning the Google-Yahoo deal, concerned that an arrangement between two large rivals might hurt competition. The arrangement is aimed at bringing Google paid search results to some Yahoo search terms. Yahoo expects to get between $250 and $450 million in incremental operation cash flow out of the agreement. Yahoo President Susan Decker declined to indicate the exact percentage which goes to Google, but she said it is a "competitive" split between the two companies.

The deal strengthens the portal company's board further thwarts the efforts put out by greedy investor Carl Icahn, who would apparently stop at nothing to see the company sold to rival Microsoft.