• Ars Technica, Tuesday, May 20, 2008 10:45 AM

Ars Technica says the MicroHoo saga, which has dragged on for about as long as the race for the Democratic Presidential nomination, isn't anywhere close to being over. Microsoft on Sunday announced that it was open to maybe buying a piece of Yahoo, its search business. But Carl Icahn, the billionaire investor who's threatened to launch a proxy fight to get Microsoft back in bed with Yahoo, won't have been too impressed to hear that. "Microsoft is trying to get the milk without buying the cow, and if you look at Icahn's history, he has never been used that way," a source tells Reuters Icahn wants Microsoft to buy Yahoo outright, not just a piece of it.

Ars points out that this would be line with Microsoft's thinking from the start: the software giant wants to gain a better foothold so it can compete with Google in search. However, the blog adds that Microsoft would arguably miss out on Yahoo's real strength by focusing on search only: Yahoo's massive traffic and registered user base.

Meanwhile, everyone's unhappy: Microsoft shareholders and executives, Yahoo shareholders and executives, so some sort of deal will likely happen. "Ultimately, it may...remind us of AOL-TimeWarner, HP-Compaq, or DaimlerChrysler a few years down the road," Ars says, adding that Google will be the only real winner.

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