Any search deal with AOL (NYSE: AOL) would start with the same given: search-advertising revenue will continue to decline as it loses access subscribers. But AOL CEO Tim Armstrong says the deal with Google to extend their search partnership through 2015 should make each search it does get more lucrative—and…

Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) Corp. co-founder Paul Allen is suing Apple (NSDQ: AAPL), Google (NSDQ: GOOG) and nine other companies indirectly through his firm Interval (NSDQ: IILG) Licensing alleging that the technology giants are violating patents developed at a lab in Silicon Valley that he financed more than a decade ago,…

Google (NSDQ: GOOG) is giving its real-time search service—which aggregate updates from sites like Facebook and Twitter—a refresh. The company says that real-time results, which have been integrated among standard web results since December, will now also be accessible from their own site. In making that change, Google is taking…

Microsoft’s Bing search engine isn’t getting much branding play on the “powered by Bing” Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) search result pages, which are making their debut this week. Do a search on Yahoo, and you’ll need a magnifying glass to figure out that the results are actually coming from Microsoft (NSDQ:…

Publicis Groupe media shop Starcom MediaVest Group has racked up a lot of digital deals over the past few year, but the agreement it has struck with production firm BermanBraun has the potential to be one of the biggest, according to stories in the NYT and AllThingsD.

Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) is shuffling the top management of its MSN portal, six months after rolling out a major redesign of the site. The company has hired Ted Cahall, who left his post as CTO of AOL (NYSE: AOL) in January, as its new corporate vice president of MSN.

Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) is hoping that some of the success it has had with gaming on the video game console will carry over to the mobile phone. The company is laying out a key part of its Windows Phone 7 strategy, announcing 50 Xbox titles—a “mix of new and familiar…

A year after EveryBlock was sold to MSNBC.com, the hyperolocal aggregator is beginning to focus on increasing the distribution of its feeds, which include the latest 911 dispatches, restaurant inspections, and local news pieces—all filtered by location. Founder Adrian Holovaty tells us EveryBlock is launching an “intensely” customizable widget today,…

Microsoft’s MSN, which introduced new ‘Local Edition’ pages as part of its big homepage overhaul earlier this year, is now adding localized deals to those pages as part of a relationship with Gannett-owned ShopLocal. The ‘Local Edition’ pages, which let visitors see local weather, traffic, news stories, and restaurant reviews…

Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) CEO Steve Ballmer is taking the stage at Microsoft’s analyst day to talk about the company’s consumer businesses, saying that “a lot of the issues we see in our consumer businesses are very much on the minds of the shareholders.” That’s an understatement, considering that the lackluster…

One word that wasn’t mentioned much—if at all—during Microsoft’s earnings call Thursday: mobile. Instead, while discussing the performance of the company’s entertainment and devices division, which encompasses Windows Phone and Xbox, executives chose to focus in on a much rosier business—Xbox Live. CFO Peter Klein noted that the company is…

Embattled CEO Steve Ballmer might* have some cause for cheer: Robust demand for PCs helped drive up sales of Microsoft’s software over the last three months, as the company reported its third consecutive quarter of increasing net income and revenue. The company said that sales jumped 22 percent to $16.04…

		EPS*	Rev. vs Q0409	Net Inc. vs Q0409
Microsoft	Release		22%	48%

* vs. Analysts' Estimates: Beat Met Missed

Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) appears ready to take more of its Zune services outside the U.S. for the first time, using Windows Phone 7 as a beachhead. One observer spotted this website inviting UK sign-ups to Microsoft’s all-you-can-eat Zune Pass music service, with unlimited streaming and downloads, priced at £8.99 a…

For most of HTC’s existence, it was a little-known cellphone manufacturer making more Windows Mobile phones than anyone else in the world. Now the Taiwanese company has ambitions to create its own brand and be recognized as making the best Android smartphones. Turns out, it has just a few ideas…

Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) is canceling 1 vs. 100, the live game show it launched for its Xbox Live online gaming service a year ago, which was a pioneer in bringing TV style entertainment to video game consoles. In a short statement, the company says that “after two successful seasons” the…

Here’s one way to boost the number of apps in your app store: Offer developers money to build them. That’s what Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) is doing to get developers interested in Windows Phone ahead of the launch of Windows Phone 7 this October.

It hasn’t been the best year for Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) in the tablet market, by any measure ... There’s been the cancellation of the company’s hotly anticipated Courier tablet, suggestions by HP (NYSE: HPQ) that it will use webOS and not Windows as the operating system in some (or all)…

In what has to be seen as somewhat of a coup for Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO), considering the list of high-profile executives that have left recently, the company has hired Bill Shaughnessy, who was Microsoft’s VP of global ad sales and services until he left a year-and-a-half ago. Shaughnessy, however, isn’t…

All of the major smartphone platforms lost share to Google (NSDQ: GOOG) Android in a recent three-month period, even though they all gained subscribers due to the market’s overall growth.