Yahoo to Microsoft: We'll fight Google alone

Rival Internet Giants are looking to form alliances to take on Google, a common enemy that continues to dominate the lucrative search business by a formidable margin.

Recently, Microsoft ended the advertising relationship with Yahoo's Overture but expressed interested in acquiring a stake in Yahoo's search business. Yahoo has however rejected the proposal.

When it comes to Google, Yahoo does lament a missed opportunity. During the initial days of Google, when Larry and Page and Sergey Bin approached Yahoo investors for a funding, Yahoo wanted to buy Google for $1 billion but the Google founders wanted $3 billion. The deal never went through and the rest is history.

Meanwhile, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has accepted that MSN advertising business trails behind Google, Yahoo and it might take 5 years to catch the advertising giants. "We are a little bit late in the game," Ballmer said.