Yahoo and Microsoft unveiled a long-awaited Web search partnership on Wednesday that would unite the two companies against market leader Google. Under the no-cash deal, Yahoo will use Microsoft's new Bing search engine on its own sites, while Yahoo will act as the exclusive global sales force for the companies' premium search advertisers. It is restricted to Internet search and related advertising revenue, while the pair would retain full autonomy over other properties and products such as email, instant messaging and display advertising. Ballmer said Microsoft expected transition costs of a few hundred million dollars in the first couple of years. Bartz said a number of Yahoo search employees will go to Microsoft and unfortunately there would be some redundancies at Yahoo We have no numbers to announce at this time, she said. Nothing will change until we get regulatory approval. Yahoo said it stood to gain about 500 million dollars in annual operating income and 200 million dollars in capital expenditure savings from the deal. The Sunnyvale, California, company also estimated the agreement would provide it with a 275-million-dollar benefit to annual operating cash flow.
