• D: All Things Digital , Thursday, November 20, 2008 11 AM

Microsoft is apparently "very close" to picking a replacement for former digital head Kevin Johnson, company insiders tell Kara Swisher. It's about time, too: Johnson left in late July, leaving Microsoft's online services division headless for nearly four months.

Whoever he or she is -- and Swisher doesn't say -- will inherit the heavy task of overseeing Yusuf Mehdi's strategic partnerships division, Satya Nadella's search engineering division, and Brian McAndrews' advertiser and publisher solutions group. According to Swisher, Steve Ballmer has exhausted his Rolodex trying to find Johnson's replacement, having recently been turned down by former Yahoo COO Dan Rosensweig.

Separately, the Microsoft CEO, speaking at Microsoft's annual shareholder's meeting on Wednesday, reiterated that he was no longer interested in buying Yahoo. "We are done with all acquisition discussions with Yahoo," Ballmer said. "We did our best...we've moved on." However, that's not to say that Ballmer and company aren't open to pursuing some kind of search deal. According to Swisher, Microsoft very much wants to take over that part of Yahoo's business, which remains a distant No. 2 to Google. Microsoft clearly thinks that Yahoo's search business will help it gain on Google, but as Swisher says, "good luck with that, but it gets an A for effort!"

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