• Adweek, Thursday, June 5, 2008 11:30 AM

During a lunch with reporters, Yahoo president Sue Decker suggested the company was not considering offloading its search business on its own. "It's a false distinction to say search is one thing and display another," she explained. "Our vision is for these to converge. Today we call them search and display. In the future, we'll just call them online advertising."

Decker's comments are interesting given widespread reports that Yahoo might be preparing to offload its search business to Microsoft. Many analysts believe that Yahoo will not be able to gain new market share in search, and should therefore sell. Meanwhile, Microsoft desperately wants to compete with Google, but given its paltry share of the search market, it would not be able do so without Yahoo's technology.

"We'd be open to anything as long as it's consistent with our convergence model," she said. Does this mean Yahoo is leaning towards holding onto its search business? Given Decker's language, it seems that Yahoo is still holding out for a complete sale to Microsoft, which would make a Google search partnership something of a consolation prize.

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