Steve Ballmer

Ballmer hints of Microsoft-Yahoo pact against Google

Steve BallmerSan Francisco  - Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said Tuesday that he still wanted to form an alliance with Yahoo to combat the dominance of Google in search advertising.

But in his annual forecast to financial analysts of Microsoft's plans for the year, he ruled out any revival of last year's aborted deal to purchase Yahoo.

Ballmer also predicted that Microsoft would face more competition from Google and Apple in the market for computer software. He said that Google's Android operating systems for mobile phones would be converted for use in laptops.