Microsoft CEO still sees chance to work with Yahoo

California - Microsoft Corp CEO Steve Ballmer said he sees opportunities to work with Yahoo Inc to create a "better search product" but would not comment on discussions that the two may be engaged in.

Ballmer's trip to the San Francisco Bay area has prompted speculation he might be meeting with Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz about a potential deal.

Ballmer, asked about Microsoft's unsuccessful bid to buy Yahoo last year, said he still thought a tie-up would have been "valuable." He was speaking to students at Stanford University on Wednesday.

"I'm glad we went down the road," Ballmer said. He reiterated previous comments about the potential opportunities of a search partnership with Yahoo, which could bring in more customers and advertisers.

Ballmer also told the audience that the economy is in a multiyear phase of resetting to a lower level.

Yahoo and Microsoft are the No. 2 and No. 3 search engines in the United States with roughly 8 percent market share and 21 percent market share, respectively, in March, according to comScore.

Google Inc, the No. 1 Internet search engine, had nearly 64 percent of the market in March.

Microsoft’s big man on campus

For the MBAs and engineering students who showed up, the event was a chance to get inspiration from the chief of one of the world’s most powerful corporations (and from someone who dropped out of Stanford Business School to join Microsoft). The press in attendance was mainly interested in comments Ballmer might make about Yahoo.

Indeed, with Microsoft and Yahoo reportedly in talks about a search partnership, speculation has risen in the blogosphere that Ballmer and Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz would have a sit-down during his swing through the Bay Area.

Ballmer addressed the speculation with his standard lines about Yahoo: He’s disappointed last year’s acquisition offer didn’t work out, but still thinks there’s potential to team up with Yahoo to create “a better search product” which would attract more customers and advertisers.

He declined to comment on any discussions that “may or may not” be occurring.

When it comes to Microsoft’s existing efforts in Internet search, Ballmer said the company needs to be more disruptive.

“We’re more like a start-up than we are more like a big guy in the search market,” he said, referring to search giant Google. “We can’t invest in everything the big guy can.”

And although Microsoft had just announced the second phase of its layoff of 5,000 employees a day earlier, Ballmer encouraged students to come work at the company, telling the crowed that Microsoft is always hiring and giving out his personal email (steveb@microsoft.com) on two occasions.

Irish student's Jarre wiki hoax dupes journalists

DUBLIN - "When I die there will be a final waltz playing in my head," Oscar-winning French composer Maurice Jarre once said, according to several newspapers reporting his death in March.

However, the quotation was invented by an Irish student who posted it on the Wikipedia website in a hoax designed to show the dangers of relying too heavily on the Internet for information.

Shane Fitzgerald made up quotes and entered them on Wikipedia -- an encyclopedia edited by users -- immediately after Jarre's death was first reported on March 30.

The 22-year-old sociology and economics student at University College Dublin said he had expected blogs and perhaps small newspapers to use the quotes but did not believe major publications would rely on Wikipedia without further checks.

"I was wrong. Quality newspapers in England, India, America and as far away as Australia had my words in their reports of Jarre's death," Fitzgerald wrote in an article in Thursday's Irish Times newspaper.

Britain's Guardian was one title that had to correct its obituary, saying the fake quotes appeared to have originated on Wikipedia before being duplicated on other websites.

"The moral of this story is not that journalists should avoid Wikipedia, but that they shouldn't use information they find there if it can't be traced back to a reliable primary source," said the Guardian's readers' editor Siobhain Butterworth.

Google: American phenomenon and antitrust target

WASHINGTON - Google is more than a fabulously successful company -- it is a cultural phenomenon facing increasing U.S. government scrutiny despite its chief executive's campaign support for President Barack Obama.

The No. 1 Internet search company and provider of text-based search ads is finding size attracts attention from antitrust enforcers still party to a settlement with personal computer operating system giant Microsoft Corp.

"In some ways people think of them as potentially becoming the next Microsoft," attorney Beau Buffier, with Shearman and Sterling LLP, said of Google.

With high tech one of the few industries where the United States remains the world leader, care needs to be taken to ensure that the market remains competitive, said Evan Stewart of Zuckerman Spaeder LLP.

"The point is that if we're going to maintain that competitive position, it can't be because we allow one entity to become a complete monopolist," Stewart said.

In one investigation, the Justice Department is looking at Google's settlement with the Authors Guild and Association of American Publishers that would allow it to create a massive, online digital library.

That deal has come under criticism because it assigns Google access to so-called orphan works, those whose copyright owners are unknown. Libraries also fear the product will become a must-have and extraordinarily expensive.

Amendments to the deal, such as excluding orphan works or spelling out pricing, could go a long way toward defusing these concerns, critics have said.

And the Federal Trade Commission has reportedly opened an inquiry into whether the ties between the boards of Apple Inc and Google Inc violate antitrust laws. Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt and former Genentech CEO Arthur Levinson are directors of both companies.

"Neither Microsoft nor IBM was ever the cultural phenomena that Google is," said Sandy Litvack of the law firm Hogan & Hartson. Litvack headed the Justice Department team that was prepared last year to fight Google's since-abandoned deal with Internet rival Yahoo Inc.

Google spokesman Adam Kovacevich said competition on the Internet was just a click away. "We understand that any time a company is successful, there's a certain degree of scrutiny that comes with the territory."

BOOKS AND BOARDS

Google and Apple could be construed as rivals, experts say, since the iPhone has been a huge hit for Apple while Google's Android operating system is used on T-Mobile's G1 smartphone.

Stewart said he fully expected that if regulators decided that Schmidt and Levinson's presence on both boards was inappropriate, that the men would step down from one without a fight. "These are fixable," said Stewart.

For its part, Google has shown little appetite for a fight with regulators. It walked away from a search advertising partnership with Yahoo in November when the Justice Department indicated it planned to oppose the plan in court.

Google had earlier succeeded in buying rival DoubleClick despite concerns that the deal would give Google too much power in the search advertising market.

"It's not that Google has necessarily done anything wrong," said Bert Foer, head of the American Antitrust Institute.

"It's not that it's bad or poorly intentioned," said Foer. "It's playing such a large role in the flow of information and has so much free cash to play with and so many creative and aggressive ideas that it presents potential problems regarding... privacy and competition."

Some Washington cynics had predicted that Google might get an easier ride because Google's Schmidt was an outspoken supporter of Obama during his election campaign.

But before her nomination to head the Justice Department's antitrust division, Christine Varney said that Google was a company to watch because of its market power, said Foer.

"That's a danger when you get too close to the crown, the crown is put in a position where it has to assiduously maintain its lack of bias," Foer said. "The Obama people can't do any favors for Google, especially an administration that said it was not going to be bought by anybody."

U.S., Canada suffer economic toll as flu hits hogs

CHICAGO - Canada threatened action against China and U.S. meat packing companies sliced pork production due to falling retail orders as import bans sparked by the H1N1 flu took an economic toll in the recession-hit United States and its northern neighbor.

After taking a beating last week, hog markets were pounded again on Monday amid fears the flu virus that has infected more than 1,000 people around the world would weaken consumer demand. About 20 nations have banned pork imports from the United States, Canada and Mexico.

In a sign of the flu's impact on trade, government data showed that the number of hogs slaughtered by U.S. meat packers on Saturday tumbled 63 percent from a year ago, bringing into focus a buildup in supply that would further hurt business.

"Actually I am far more concerned about the building backlog of heavyweight slaughter hogs as a result of packer slaughter slowdowns. It is going to take a while for this to be cleared out," said Don Norcini, an independent hog trader.

"As much as I want to see this situation go away, the damage has been done and it is not going to disappear in a week's time," he added.

Canada, meanwhile, threatened to take China to the World Trade Organization unless Beijing lifted its ban on Canadian pigs and pork from the province of Alberta, where the new flu strain was detected for the first time in a herd of swine.

The hogs were infected by a person who had been to Mexico.

MF Global Research analyst Rich Feltes wrote in a note to clients that "our sources indicated that retailers slowed pork orders last week, taking a 'wait and see' posture on whether (U.S.) domestic pork demand was indeed damaged.

"There has still been no transmittal from pigs or pork to humans, so the battle is not lost, but a continuation of 'wait and see' ordering could put more pressure on markets."

FLU STRAIN FOUND IN CANADIAN PIGS
Detection of the virus in the herd of Canadian pigs sparked Monday's sell-off in hogs. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency stressed the incident posed no threat to the food supply.

But Canada Pork International, an export promotion group, said pork exports have dropped 10 to 15 percent since the virus was detected in a swine herd. Canada exported 1.1 million tonnes of pork last year, more than half of its production.

The U.S. Meat Export Federation said last week the bans had cut U.S. pork exports 8 to 12 percent. Pork sales to Mexico have slowed as people stayed indoors.

Dealers in U.S. cash hog markets said prices could take weeks to recover.

Before the outbreak, hog prices had started to trend seasonally higher as the onset of spring grilling season boosted demand. Also, the animals typically gain weight more slowly in warmer weather, which limits the potential pork supply and supports prices.