In an interview with The Washington Post, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer riffs on the future of media, claiming that in ten years, all media will be delivered over the Internet. "In the next 10 years, the whole world of media, communications and advertising are going to be turned upside down -- my opinion," Ballmer said. "There will be no media consumption left in 10 years that is not delivered over an IP network. There will be no newspapers, no magazines that are delivered in paper form. Everything gets delivered in an electronic form." Ten years is an awfully short amount …

On June 27, Microsoft Co-founder and Chairman Bill Gates will step away from daily management of the company to focus on his philanthropy project, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Steve Ballmer, Gates' longtime friend and colleague, will remain company CEO, but will assume greater control. The Wall Street Journal tells the story of the gradual handoff, which was set into motion in early 2000, when Gates handed his CEO title to Ballmer. At the time, Ballmer got the title, but Gates, who held sway that went beyond a title, retained the power, and a yearlong power struggle ensued. Gates …

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, …

The tech world is anxiously awaiting the 3G iPhone, expected to be announced by Apple CEO Steve Jobs on Monday. But will a faster model really lead to mainstream adoption? Silicon Alley Insider's Dan Frommer thinks that cool software could prove to be more important in launching the Apple device into the mainstream. He looks at the major media companies creating programs on the iPhone platform, and it's an impressive list: Time Warner's AOL, Electronic Arts, Sega, THQ, Salesforce.com, and a whole host of software startups are currently tinkering away, and Frommer expects the likes of Google and Microsoft to …

Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock claims that Carl Icahn's version of what went wrong in the Microhoo collapse "seriously misrepresents and manipulates the facts" and that he has no constructive plan for Yahoo other than insisting that it sell itself to Microsoft, which has repeatedly stated that it's no longer interested in purchasing Yahoo. In the letter, Bostock refutes Icahn's accusation that Yahoo's employee severance plan, implemented after Microsoft announced its intention to takeover the company, was a "Poison Pill" designed to undermine the deal. "To set the record straight, the employee retention program is designed to protect the company's …

The question of whether there's a sustainable business model in creating and disseminating widgets on social networks hangs in the air, like the rest of social networking's market future. But Slide, Inc., one of the biggest widgetmakers, which recently fetched a (far-fetched) financing round valuing it at $500 million, sees a bright, ad-supported future for Super-Poking: Kara Swisher reports that the Silicon Valley company is now opening a New York City office. It also added a new director of ad sales, Jason Bitensky, who comes to Slide from his post as director of national sales at AOL Media Networks/Platform-A. Until …