Google Launches "Google Sites" Site Publishing Service

By Eric Auchard

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Google Inc (GOOG.O: Quote, Profile, Research) said on Wednesday it is offering a simple Web site publishing tool for office workers to set up and run their team collaboration sites, taking aim at Microsoft Corp's (MSFT.O: Quote, Profile, Research) rival SharePoint franchise.

Google Sites, as the new site publishing service is known, is a scaled back version of JotSpot, an easy-to-edit service for organizations and individuals to set up and edit Web sites that Google had acquired 16 months ago for undisclosed terms.

The new service, the latest stage in the Internet leader's push into the market for business and educational users, allows non-technical users to organize and share digital information such as Web links, calendars, photos, videos, presentations, attachments and other documents in an easy-to-maintain site.

"Creating a team web site has always been too complicated, requiring dedicated hardware and software as well as programming skills," said Dave Girouard, general manager of Google's Enterprise unit, which is aimed at office workers.

Google Sites is a stripped-down version of Microsoft's SharePoint collaboration software, which lets users inside an organization share documents and maintain calendars on secure Web sites, but is far more complex to set up and maintain.

Unlike SharePoint, which typically requires organizations to buy and maintain their own hardware and software at costs that can run from tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars to serve one hundred users, Google Sites is hosted on Google computers and is free to users of Google Apps, which the company offers at a fraction of the cost of Microsoft tools.

"We think this is SharePoint-like, but better," Girouard said in an interview.

Basic sites are free or carry a small monthly per-user fee, depending on whether organizations have purchased fuller-featured versions of Google Apps that allow for centralized technical management.

Google Sites puts control of Web sites into the hands of regular office workers rather than an organization's network administrators or technical support desk, Girouard said.

"The idea is that IT (Information Technology departments) don't have to do anything except enable users to serve themselves," the Google executive said.

Google Sites enables any user invited to join a site to edit pages without requiring knowledge of Web coding or design. Any information published to the site is searchable by visitors with permission to use the site, the company said.

The site publishing framework lets office workers create "intranets" -- centralized archives of company information that can only be viewed within an organization rather than on the public Web. Such sites can be used to manage team projects.

Individual teams members can also create profile pages of their activities, interests and schedules. In school settings, Google Sites can function as virtual classrooms for posting homework assignments, class notes or other student resources.

Girouard said he considered Google Sites the biggest new product introduction in a steady stream of innovations since his company introduced Google Apps only a year ago this month.

Google Apps offers a suite of word-processing, spreadsheet and presentation software that let groups of users edit and view documents over the Web, together with e-mail and basic personal Web site publishing tools.

Over the past year, Google said more than 500,000 businesses and several thousand schools and universities have adopted Google Apps.

"Google Sites is relatively easy to use and free," said Rebecca Wettemann, an analyst with technical consulting firm Nucleus Research of Wellesley, Massachusetts. "Google is making people think differently about how businesses use the Web."

But Wettemannn said Google's Web site publishing framework so far lacks management features that let organizations control the unbridled proliferation of poorly maintained or out-of-date Web sites that can occur when such tools are let loose.

"Just because it is easy to use and intuitive doesn't mean users don't have to sit down and think about the business problems they are trying to solve," she said.

(Editing by Kim Coghill)

Source: Reuters

An Open Approach to Yahoo Search

If you didn't realize it, Yahoo! is embracing openness like never before:

Hadoop Now at the Heart of Every Yahoo! Search
Yahoo!'s Quest to Open Up
The open theme continues today as we are announcing that we are opening up Yahoo! Search itself. That's right -- you heard it correctly -- the Yahoo! Search experience will soon be open. This open search platform enables 3rd parties to build and present the next generation of search results. There are a number of layers and capabilities that we have built into the platform, but our intent is clear -- present users with richer, more useful search results so that they can complete their tasks more efficiently and get from "to do" to "done."

Because the platform is open it gives all Web site owners -- big or small -- an opportunity to present more useful information on the Yahoo! Search page as compared to what is presented on other search engines. Site owners will be able to provide all types of additional information about their site directly to Yahoo! Search. So instead of a simple title, abstract and URL, for the first time users will see rich results that incorporate the massive amount of data buried in websites -- ratings and reviews, images, deep links, and all kinds of other useful data -- directly on the Yahoo! Search results page.

For example, by sharing its database of restaurant reviews, location information and photos with Yahoo!, Yelp can develop a far more visually compelling and useful search result than was previously presented to users. Here is how it works: website owners like Yelp, WebMD, The New York Times, and anyone else can supply us with their data and our patented Machined Learned Ranking helps ensure these results are presented to users at the right time. Users benefit because their search results will have more useful information than they did before from websites they trust. And websites benefit through increased and higher quality traffic from Yahoo! Search. Here is an example of what it will look like:

Before


After


We believe that combining a free, open platform with structured, semantic content from across the Web is a clear win for all parties involved -- site owners, Yahoo! and most importantly, our users. And by the way, users will be in complete control of the experience and will be able to turn off anything related to open search if they so desire. Over the course of the next few months, we'll be talking more about how this platform will work and what it will enable.

If you're interested in learning more about our open search platform, you can do so live and in person tomorrow (Tue, 2/26) if you're coming to SMX West. Amit Kumar, the product lead for the open search platform, will be discussing it at a special lunch talk (Session time: 12:30 p.m. to 1:00 p.m.; Location: Santa Clara Convention Center, Great America J). If you can't make it but want to be kept in the loop, please share your information with us here.

We want to know what you think, so keep your comments coming. And stay tuned for more on this and a few other things we've got in the pipeline.

Vish Makhijani
SVP & GM, Yahoo! Search

Source: Yahoo Search Blog

Suit Against Microsoft Over Vista Allowed

SEATTLE (AP) — A federal judge said Friday that consumers may go ahead with a class action lawsuit against Microsoft Corp. over the way it advertised computers loaded with Windows XP as capable of running the Vista operating system.

The lawsuit said Microsoft's labeling of some PCs as "Windows Vista Capable" was misleading because many of those computers were not powerful enough to run all of Vista's features, including the much-touted "Aero" user interface.

U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman certified the class action suit but whittled down its scope to focus primarily on whether Microsoft's "Vista Capable" labels created artificial demand for computers during the 2006 holiday shopping season, and inflated prices for computers that couldn't be upgraded to the full-featured version of Vista, which was released at the end of January 2007.

Neither of the two people who filed the original lawsuit participated in a program Microsoft devised to help people who bought new computers before Vista's launch upgrade later to the new operating system, but they argued nonetheless that people who bought "Vista Capable" computers were harmed because they could only run a basic version of Vista.

The judge said if they added a named plaintiff who did take part in Microsoft's "Express Upgrade" program, they could pursue that claim as well.

Microsoft said it was reviewing the ruling

Source: Associated Press

Google to Sell Display Ads in Web Videos

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Web search leader Google Inc. plans to start selling ads to appear in Web videos after it agreed a partnership with YuMe, an online video advertising network.

YuMe, a Redwood City, California-based start-up, said on Thursday, it will serve InVideo overlay adverts as part of Google's AdSense for video beta advertising program.

Google has traditionally used AdSense for text-only advertising but said the video program extends its offer to targeted, contextually-relevant video graphical ads and text overlays.

Google has been working on ways of developing advertising revenue for online video since it bought YouTube, the video-sharing site, in November 2006.

As Internet access speeds become faster around the world more television and Hollywood-produced video content is moving to the Web on sites like Hulu.com, owned by News Corp and NBC Universal, and Fancast.com, owned by Comcast Corp.

YuMe said Google is one of the third-party feeds accepted by YuMe's Adaptive Campaign Engine, which helps Web publishers in its network match each video ad impression with the best money-making ad placement in realtime.

(Reporting by Yinka Adegoke; Editing by Greg Mahlich)

Source: Reuters

Lawsuit Claims Google Stole Earth Idea

A former Google contractor is suing the company for allegedly stealing from him the idea for the Sky layer in Google Earth.

The lawsuit filed this week in federal district court in Atlanta seeks punitive damages of $25 million from Google.

Jonathan Cobb claims in his suit that he disclosed the idea for a Google Sky idea in internal e-mail discussion groups when he worked at Google as a contractor beginning in 2006.

The Google Earth Sky layer, when it launched in August 2007, was similar in interface and functionality to what he had conceptualized, Cobb claims.

Google representatives did not return e-mails seeking comment.

The case may not be as straightforward as it sounds, says one Internet law expert.

"These types of misappropriation claims are easy to make and hard to disprove," says Eric Goldman, an assistant professor at Santa Clara University School of Law. "It's not entirely clear that Cobb wins even if everything he says is true."

Google Tests Video Ads in Search Results

By Saul Hansell

Google has always had a love-hate relationship with advertising. Its power and wealth come from the $16 billion a year of advertising that it sells. Yet on its most important pages, the results from its Web search engine, it has limited ads to nothing more garish than a dozen words of text.

That is about to change. On Thursday, Google started testing video ads on some pages of search results. And it is developing ad formats with images, interactive maps and other more elaborate features.

Marissa Mayer, Google’s vice president of search products and user experience, said in an interview that the change reflects the evolution of the once-sparse Google pages. Last year Google introduced what it calls universal search, which mixes images, videos, news stories and other types of information with the standard text links to Web pages.

“The big insight of Google wasn’t text ads; it was that the ads should be conducive to the format,” Ms. Mayer said. “We were doing text-based search that was all textual. Visual ads don’t work in that format.”

By contrast, she said text ads are not as effective on pages with search results that include images and video. The eyes of users automatically gravitate to the images more than the text, she said. Now that Google’s main search results pages include more images, video links and other elements, it is more appropriate, she argued, to have corresponding advertising formats.

“With universal search, something is getting shaken up a bit on the bottom part of the page,” she said. “The ads on the top part of the page should match.”

At first, users will barely notice the change because the videos will not be immediately obvious. Ads with accompanying videos will have a small button with a plus sign. Google has increasingly used the plus icon to indicate that certain information — like a map — can pop up on a search results page. Users that click the plus button on an ad will see a small video player that shows a commercial, movie trailer or other clip.

Ms. Mayer said, however, that the company would explore adding small thumbnail photos to the video ads as well. And a spokesman said the company is considering testing other formats that may include ads with images. But it is taking a delicate approach.

“We don’t want all sorts of video and banner ads all over the site all the time,” Ms. Mayer said. “People who advertise a movie want to show a trailer. Why shouldn’t they have the same format we use for search results and have a little plus box that says watch the trailer?”

For now, advertisers will not pay extra to put video in the ads. They enter a price they will pay for a click in Google’s regular text-ad auction. But in the video ads, the advertiser pays when users click to see the video, even if they never click through to the advertiser’s site.

This allows Google to expand what it can offer advertisers that are focused on promoting their brands, rather than driving traffic to a Web site. But Ms. Mayer said the company was not changing its idea that ads need to be directly relevant to what users are searching for.

“If you search for golf clubs, you get ads for golf clubs, not a banner ad about Pepsi that you may drink on the golf course,” Ms. Mayer said.

As always on Google, ads are shown based on a combination of factors, including the amount bid and how often they are clicked on.

Google, which owns YouTube, the largest user-contributed video site on the Web, has been exploring a wide range of ways to put video ads online. It started selling video ads that could appear on other Web sites two years ago.

The test is scheduled to begin today in a small fraction of Google searches. Google would not provide an image of what they look like. If you see one, grab an image and send it in to bitsfeedback (at) nytimes.com.

Source: NY Times

Possible Yahoo Alliance with News Corp.

By MICHAEL LIEDTKE, AP Business Writer

Yahoo Inc. hopes media conglomerate News Corp. can rescue it from a Microsoft Corp. takeover — or at least prove the slumping Internet pioneer is worth more money than its unsolicited suitor wants to pay.

A News Corp. partnership could provide Yahoo with the escape hatch that the Sunnyvale-based company has been seeking since Microsoft pounced with its takeover bid two weeks ago.

If nothing else, the possibility of Yahoo joining forces with one of the world's largest media empires could prompt Microsoft to sweeten its bid, which was originally valued at $44.6 billion, or $31 per share.

Yahoo is believed to want at least $40 per share, or about $56 billion.

The details of the proposed News Corp. alliance were still being worked out Wednesday, according to a person familiar with the situation. The person didn't want to be identified because the talks are considered confidential.

Most analysts believe Microsoft will do whatever necessary to buy Yahoo because the world's largest software maker views the acquisition as the best way to counteract Google Inc.'s dominance of the online search and ad markets — a battleground that is rapidly reshaping the technology and media industries.

"Buying Yahoo makes tremendous sense for Microsoft, more sense than any other company in the world," said Ken Marlin, a New York investment banker specializing in media and technology deals.

Both The Wall Street Journal and a prominent blog, TechCrunch, reported that News Corp. is interested in folding its popular online social network, MySpace.com, and other Internet assets into Yahoo — an idea that first came up last year. News Corp. owns The Wall Street Journal.

News Corp. and a private equity firm reportedly would buy significant stakes in Yahoo as part of a complex deal designed to push the Sunnyvale-based company's market value toward $50 billion.

A Yahoo spokesman said the company continues to "carefully and thoroughly" evaluate alternatives that will enrich its long-term shareholders. Yahoo's board reportedly is to meet again Thursday or Friday to consider the company's next move.

News Corp. spokeswoman Teri Everett declined to comment on the Yahoo talks.

Yahoo shares climbed 31 cents to $29.88 Wednesday while Microsoft shares gained 62 cents to $28.96 News Corp. shares slipped 10 cents to finish at $19.93.

Based on Microsoft's current market value, its cash-and-stock bid for Yahoo now stands at $29.50 per share, or about $41 billion.

Yahoo rejected Microsoft's offer Monday, saying it "substantially undervalues" assets that include one of the Internet's biggest audiences and best-known brands.

Microsoft has held firm so far, calling its original bid "full and fair" while threatening to launch a hostile takeover attempt.

"What's unclear now is whether Yahoo is just trying to get a higher offer or if the company really doesn't want to sell to Microsoft," said Peter Falvey, a technology investment banker with Revolution Partners.

Although News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch unequivocally said during a conference call last week that his New York-based company isn't interested in an outright acquisition of Yahoo, he didn't rule out the possibility of a deal involving MySpace.

When asked whether he might renew the previous discussions with Yahoo about a MySpace alliance, Murdoch replied: "I think that day has passed, but you never know."

A News Corp. stake in Yahoo might hinge on whether the two sides can agree on how much MySpace is worth.

News Corp., which also owns the Fox television and movie studios in addition to its newspaper and Internet holdings, bought MySpace for $580 million in 2005. But the social network's value has soared as its audience has swelled above 100 million users, creating a potential advertising gold mine.

Ironically, Murdoch and his lieutenants can point to a recent Microsoft deal to make a case that MySpace is worth more than $15 billion.

Facebook Inc., which owns the Internet's second largest social network behind MySpace, now arguably has a $15 billion market value, based on Microsoft's purchase late last year of a 1.6 percent stake for $240 million.

Despite its popularity, MySpace hasn't established itself as an effective advertising vehicle. Google last month cited lackluster returns from its ad partnerships with MySpace and other social networks as one of its few disappointments during the fourth quarter.

Besides talking with News Corp., Yahoo also reportedly has explored an advertising partnership with Google, its biggest rival. Although Google probably could help elevate Yahoo's drooping profits, the alliance would likely face antitrust hurdles because the companies operate the Web's two biggest ad networks and eliminating one would reduce competition.

Reports of a possible merger with Time Warner Inc.'s AOL appear to be more rumor than fact, said the person familiar with News Corp. negotiations.
___

AP Business Writer Seth Sutel in New York contributed to this story.

Source: Yahoo News

Google: DNS Flaw Makes Phishing Undetectable

Matthew Broersma, Techworld

Users are at risk from a loophole in the the Domain Name System (DNS) that could make financial scams undetectable, according to a study by researchers from Georgia Tech and Google.

The study: "Corrupted DNS Resolution Paths", was presented by researchers David Dagon, Chris Lee and Wenke Lee of Georgia Tech, and Niels Provos of Google, at the Network and Distributed System Security Symposium (NDSS) in San Diego this week.

The attack they describe, called "DNS resolution path corruption", could be carried out by a simple piece of code implanted via a malicious website or email attachment, the study said. The code would change a file in the Windows registry settings, telling the PC to use the malicious server for all DNS information.

This would allow scammers to invisibly guide users to the malicious sites of their choice, getting around security tools such as anti-phishing software.

The exploit described in the new paper could lead to serious financial liabilities, according to DNS inventor Paul Mockapetris. In a published report this week he said it is only a matter of time before a crook makes off with up to $100m in a successful attack on a corporation.

The problem is "open recursive" DNS servers, which are used to tell computers how to find each other on the internet by translating domain names like google.com into numerical Internet Protocol addresses. Criminals are using these servers in combination with new attack techniques to develop a new generation of phishing attacks, according to the study.

The researchers estimate that there are 17 million open-recursive DNS servers on the internet, the vast majority of which give accurate information. Unlike other DNS servers, open-recursive systems will answer all DNS lookup requests from any computer on the Internet, a feature that makes them particularly useful for hackers.

The researchers estimate that as many as 0.4 percent, or 68,000, open-recursive DNS servers are behaving maliciously, returning false answers to DNS queries. They also estimate that another two percent of them provide questionable results. Collectively, these servers are beginning to form a "second secret authority" for DNS that is undermining the trustworthiness of the Internet, the researchers warned.

Attacks on the DNS system are not new, and online criminals have been changing DNS settings in victim's computers for at least four years now, Dagon said. But only recently have the bad guys lined up the technology and expertise to reliably launch this particular type of attack in a more widespread way. While the first such attacks used computer viruses to make these changes, lately attackers have been relying on web-based malware.

Using Google's network of web crawlers, researchers uncovered more than 2,100 web pages that used exploit code to change the Windows registry of visitors

Source: PC Advisor

Yahoo Rejects Microsoft Bid

In a bid to remain independent, Yahoo plans to reject Microsoft Corp.’s unsolicited takeover offer, according to reports on the Wall Street Journal’s web site.

Quoting sources familiar with the situation, the Journal reports that Yahoo’s board feels the offer of $31 per share “massively undervalues” the company. A letter spelling out the position is expected to be sent Monday. Yahoo also expressed concern that Microsoft’s offer does not account for risks to Yahoo should the deal be overturned by regulators.

The Journal source said the company would be unwilling to consider an offer below $40 per share, which would represent a $12 billion increase over Microsoft’s original $44.6 billion bid. It is unclear if Microsoft would be willing to increase its bid by such a significant amount.

A Yahoo representative said the company would not comment on rumor or speculation and reiterated that the board is evaluating all its strategic options.

The two companies have been in discussions about an alliance or merger for more than a year. Yahoo has long hoped to remain independent, believing it can reverse its fortunes and lift its flagging stock price.

In the summer of 2007, investors believed it was possible as well. Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang replaced Terry Semel as CEO and announced he would unveil a new strategic plan for the company within 100 days.

“There will be no sacred cows and we need to move quickly,” he said. But, after the 100 days – and then some – passed, investor patience wore thin, driving the stock lower.

In late January, the slumping Internet pioneer reported a fifth-consecutive quarter of lower profits and warned of “headwinds” for 2008. Yahoo’s battered stock fell to a four-year low, below the $20 per share level, and Microsoft pounced.

Yahoo shares are currently 51 percent above their pre-bid value. In contrast, Microsoft shares have dropped about 13 percent since the bid was announced, far worse than the Standard & Poor’s 500’s loss of 4 percent.

The second-guessing about Microsoft's unsolicited bid is typical for large acquisitions. Investors are debating whether the benefits outweigh the potential management distractions, sagging employee morale and other headaches that can arise after the deal is done.

Should Microsoft decide to increase its offer, it could still turn up the pressure by drawing upon its $21 billion in cash and lofty market value of $265 billion to raise the bid.

Microsoft Chief Financial Officer Chris Liddell said the software company may issue some debt to finance the cash portion of its 50-50 stock and cash offer for Yahoo, instead of drawing down its entire $21 billion cash pile.

"It's likely we're actually going to borrow for the first time," said Liddell in an annual strategy meeting with analysts before Yahoo’s apparent decision. "It's going to be a mixture of the cash we have on hand plus debt.”

Since Microsoft’s initial bid, there has been a significant amount of discussion about antitrust concerns. Google’s chief legal officer David Drummond, writing on the company’s blog, said “Microsoft's hostile bid for Yahoo raises troubling questions. This is about more than simply a financial transaction, one company taking over another. It's about preserving the underlying principles of the Internet: openness and innovation."

Microsoft made similar comments when Google CEO Eric Schmidt reached out to Yahoo about a potential partnership following the bid.
While some investors held out hope for a white knight bidder, none surfaced after Microsoft’s initial bid. News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch ruled out a bid during a Feb. 4 conference call. Other potential suitors, such as Comcast and AT&T, opted against going against Microsoft’s deep pockets, as well.

Source: Yahoo!

Free Google Apps Team Edition

Google is releasing a new edition of its hosted applications suite that end-users can bring into the workplace without the involvement of their IT department.

It means that IT managers who fret about employees using unauthorized software at work will have another tool to worry about, especially in industries where information management is heavily regulated, like health care and finance.

The new release, called Google Apps Team Edition, is due to be available Thursday for free. It is aimed at employees who are interested in using Google Apps but whose employers haven't signed up for it, said Rajen Sheth, Google Apps senior product manager.

Team Edition contains the core communication and collaboration services and applications from other editions, like the word processor, spreadsheet, Start page, Talk instant messaging and calendar, but not Gmail, which requires IT participation to re-route the company's e-mail flow.

So far, more than 500,000 mostly small organizations have signed up for Google Apps, but the other versions Standard, Education, Partner and Premier require IT to implement the suite because its services are linked to an organization's Internet domain.

That changes with the Team Edition, which will let employees set up Google Apps workgroups as long as they have valid e-mail addresses with their organizations' domains, Sheth said.

"Google Apps has been, by definition, an IT project, and now we want to let people use it without IT involvement," Sheth said.

Once signed up with Team Edition, people can see who else in their organization's Internet domain is also a user, and invite those who aren't, Sheth said.

"It provides a quick way for workgroups to start collaborating," he said.

IT departments shouldn't get angry about Team Edition, according to Sheth, because, unlike other software that employees use without IT approval, it provides an upgrade path to IT-manageable versions.

"The IT department always has the option to sign up for the Standard Edition for free if they want to provide control over this," Sheth said. "This is a solid, happy medium."

Team Edition can also be upgraded to the other editions, like Education, which is free, and Premier, which costs US$50 per user per year. Although Gmail isn't part of Team Edition, Google is exploring ways to make it a part, Sheth said.

By its very nature as a Web-hosted software suite, an unmanaged Google Apps deployment can represent a concern for IT departments, since the applications and the data generated are stored outside organizations' firewalls in Google data centers.

However, Team Edition will be far from alone among the hosted software that employees use in their organizations without getting approval from the IT department, said Erica Driver, a Forrester Research analyst.

The IT department reactions to Team Edition will depend on the organization's culture, which range from those in "lockdown mode" to those more tolerant and aware that Web 2.0 technologies are seeping in from the consumer world to the workplace, Driver said.

Team Edition, with its bottom-up, end-user-driven focus, fits in with Google's traditional strategy of appealing to individuals, grown out of its consumer services, and will likely boost the adoption of Google Apps in companies, government agencies, educational institutions and other organizations that don't currently use the suite, said Matt Cain, a Gartner analyst.

"The Google model is to prime the well at the end-user level and assist IT somewhere along the way, but the demand generation for the suite will definitely be at the rank-and-file level, not at the IT level," Cain said.

Google needs to make sure it strikes a balance between rallying end-users and giving IT managers a way to enter the picture and exert control, he said. "Google will encourage end-user adoption but it can't disintermediate the IT staff, which will have to ultimately clean up any mess that's created," Cain said.

Source: NYTimes

Possible Yahoo and Google Alliance

By Eric Auchard and Megan Davies


SAN FRANCISCO/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Yahoo Inc would consider a business alliance with Google Inc as one way to rebuff a $44.6 billion takeover proposal by Microsoft, a source familiar with Yahoo's strategy said on Sunday.

Yahoo management is considering revisiting talks it held with Google several months ago on an alliance as an alternative to Microsoft's bid, that source said. At $31 a share, Yahoo believes the bid undervalues the company, two sources said.

A second source close to Yahoo said it had received a procession of preliminary contacts by media, technology, telephone and financial companies. But the source said they were unaware whether any alternative bid was in the offing.

In a memo to Yahoo employees on Friday, which was obtained by Reuters on Sunday, Yahoo leaders wrote: "We want to emphasize that absolutely no decisions have been made -- and, despite what some people have tried to suggest, there's certainly no integration process underway."

Few natural bidders exist besides Google that could engage in a bidding war, and Google would be unlikely to win approval from antitrust regulators, some Wall Street analysts said on Friday.

The Wall Street Journal reported on its Web site on Sunday that Google's chief executive Eric Schmidt called Yahoo's chief executive Jerry Yang to offer his company's help in any effort to thwart Microsoft's bid.

Spokesmen for Yahoo and Google declined comment. Google was not immediately available for comment on the WSJ story.

Yahoo's efforts to find an alternative bidder could simply be a measure to pressure Microsoft to boost its bid, which valued Yahoo at $44.6 billion when first announced on Friday.

Sanford C. Bernstein analyst Jeffrey Lindsay wrote in a research note that "the Microsoft bid of $31 is very astute" because it puts pressure on Yahoo management to take actions that could unlock the underlying value of Yahoo assets, which he estimates are worth upward of $39-$45 a share.

The bid gave a boost to markets in Asia when they opened on Monday. Shares in Softbank Corp soared as much as 16 percent and Yahoo Japan was untraded due to a flood of buy orders on Monday, on hopes a potential deal between Microsoft and Yahoo would boost the Japanese firms' competitiveness. Softbank holds a 3.9 percent stake in Yahoo Inc in terms of voting rights.

The benchmark Nikkei average ended the morning up 2.4 percent while indexes in Shanghai, Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore also gained.

COMPETITION CONCERNS

Separately, Google fired back on Sunday at Microsoft Corp's bid to acquire Yahoo, accusing Microsoft of seeking to extend its computer software monopoly deeper into the Internet realm.

David Drummond, a Google chief legal officer, said in a blog post that the combination of Microsoft and Yahoo could undermine competition on the Web and called on policy makers to challenge the combination.

Microsoft responded to Google's arguments by saying that a merger with Yahoo would create a "compelling number two competitor for Internet search and online advertising" to market leader Google.

"The alternative scenarios only lead to less competition on the Internet," Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith said in a statement.

Drummond argued that Microsoft's power stems from decades- old monopolies in Windows -- the software operating system used to control most personal computers -- and Internet Explorer, which is the dominant browser consumers used to view the Web.
Microsoft's proposed merger with Yahoo would combine the No. 1 and No. 2 suppliers of Web-based e-mail, instant messaging (IM) and portals, which act as starting points for hundreds of millions of users seeking information on the Web.

"Could a combination of the two take advantage of a PC software monopoly to unfairly limit the ability of consumers to freely access competitors' email, IM, and Web-based services?" Drummond said in a blog at googleblog.blogspot.com/.

In making its case for the deal during a conference call on Friday, Microsoft executives said Google -- not Microsoft -- was the one company antitrust regulators were likely to bar from buying Yahoo, based on Google's dominance in Web search.

Microsoft executives cited industry data showing Google has a 75 percent share of worldwide Web search revenue. Collectively, Yahoo and Microsoft attract around 20 percent of Web searches, Internet measurement firms show.

"Today, Google is the dominant search engine and advertising company on the Web," Smith said in replying to Google on Sunday. "Google has amassed about 75 percent of paid search revenues worldwide and its share continues to grow."

A person familiar with Google's thinking said the company believes Microsoft is using the same playbook it did in the 1990s to switch Windows users away from Web browser pioneer Netscape Communications to its own Internet Explorer.

"It is the same old story," the source said.

(Additional reporting by Daisuke Wakabayshi in Seattle and David Lawsky in San Francisco; Editing by Diane Craft & Lincoln Feast)

Source: Reuters