How will Microsoft improve its position in the Internet search market without a Yahoo acquisition? At the company's meeting with analysts today, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer outlined several approaches, including the standard lines about improving the company's brand and coming up with technological and business innovations.
But he also referred to "alternative" approaches -- without giving details.
In the search market, Ballmer said, the company faces a predicament. Users are drawn to search engines in part by sponsored results -- the advertisements along the border of a search-results page. Sponsored results become more relevant with a larger base of advertisers. But advertisers are attracted by larger numbers of search users, and queries.
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