Summary: Blake Jorgensen agrees in principle to an anti-Google partnership with Microsoft, but soon leaves the company.

IN RECENT COVERAGE of the Yahoo-Microsoft flirt [1, 2, 3] it was realised that, having expelled the old management and put inside some of its own [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6], Microsoft is hoping to just use Yahoo! to its own advantage, maybe without even buying it or acquiring just portions of the company, such as search. Here is the latest twist in this saga, which has already lasted for over a year (since February 2008).

Blake Jorgensen, Yahoo's chief financial officer, said today that the company is open to a search partnership with Microsoft, but that such a deal would be complex to implement from a technology standpoint.

His comments come a day after Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer reiterated his desire to talk with his Yahoo counterpart about pooling their search businesses. He's hoping that Carol Bartz, who took the reins of Yahoo in January, may be more open to an agreement than co-founder Jerry Yang, who turned Ballmer down repeatedly last year.

Around the same time, however, Blake Jorgensen also quit the company. This happened following speculations that Microsoft might exploit Yahoo! in its typical routine of breaking competitors rather than making better products than theirs.

Ballmer told attendees at Microsoft’s Strategic Meeting Update presentation that he would like to find a way for Yahoo and Microsoft "to pool resources" against Google.

When Yahoo and Google pondered partnering, Microsoft used its muscle as a political movement and potentially corrupted politicians [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]. It even resorted to AstroTurfing. ⬆