Partnering up against Microsoft

Rewind to about 8 years back around 1998, Microsoft was a dominant force on the Internet with its MSN network. At the same time it was facing anti-trust suits from some tech players like Sun Microsystems and AOL for using unfair business practices. Turn the page to May 2006 now, the big Silicon Valley companies are partnering up to put pressure on Microsoft.

Yahoo and eBay signed a multi-year deal last week focussing on advertising, search and e-commerce. This deal makes Yahoo the exclusive provider of graphic and text ads on eBay. Yahoo would now make use of eBay's PayPal service of online wallets and payment services. The two companies would also look at co-developing VoIP services providing 'click-to-call' services on their websites, using both Yahoo Messenger with Voice and eBay's Skype.

Dell and Google have agreed on a series of deals to pre-install Web and desktop search software on future Dell manufactured PCs. Under the deal, millions of Dell PCs will be loaded with Google's toolbar for search functionalities and with a dedicated Dell-Google homepage. Both companies would be benefitting from ad-revenue sharing program with this deal.