Microsoft rules out further purchases in the search business

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, do not expect more acquisitions to help the business to challenge Google's dominance in Web search market, said Monday.
"Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's strongman
"No, wait," he replied when asked if the acquisition is part of the strategy.
Microsoft recently reached an agreement with Yahoo search, after a long and fruitless attempt to buy the Internet media company.
"We will keep working hard and investing in marketing and the like, and of course we are trying to make the Yahoo deal achieves regulatory approval," he said after giving a lecture at the meeting with British businessmen.Ballmer also reiterated what was said on other occasions, he believes growth will return gradually to the world economy.
"Things have gone down. I see them staying there and growing slowly," he said in response to a question from the audience.
Ballmer added that Microsoft is going to freeze its budget for research and development, which is the largest sector of 9,500 billion dollars, partly to keep resources in reserve for fight with Google.
"We must ensure we have the money we need to continue to build new businesses," he said. "We're trying to give some competition to Google in the search market," he added.
In late June, Microsoft had short-term investments and cash of 31,400 million dollars.
Under the agreement signed with Yahoo for the next 10 years, the new browser from Microsoft, Bing, will be used in searches in the pages of Yahoo. In return, Microsoft will pay Yahoo for 88 percent of the revenue generated from advertising on those sites.
In theory, this means that Microsoft gets more traffic to refine its search technology and advertising base increases, while Yahoo gets revenue from search ads without having the expense of managing their own engine.