Looks like Microsoft and Yahoo may not be working together as closely as many thought. News coming out directly from Yahoo’s senior director Burke Culligan at the Deutsche Bank Technology Conference, says that Yahoo may let users choose which search engine they want to run on their pages. This choice in engine wasn’t what Microsoft and Yahoo had originally agreed on, or what we thought they agreed on.

The original agreement had Bing as the only search engine on Yahoo’s web site. This news is strange considering Yahoo CEO, Carol Bartz, was with Steve Balmer during the announcement that Bing would be Yahoo’s only search engine as part of the ten-year deal. I’m sure Burke Culligan hasn’t spoken to their CEO, or maybe he has and there’s some new developments.

There is definitely some confusion going on? Culligan could have misspoke or he knows something Yahoo doesn’t want anyone else to know. Whatever the case, the smoke should clear sometime soon. Microsoft wouldn’t want whispers about their deal not coming through.

(Via PaidContent)