Microsoft’s fourth-quarter earnings came in about where Wall Street had expected, but the decline of its Windows business continued during a holiday quarter when it seems pretty clear other gadgets dominated shopping lists.

		EPS*	Rev. vs Q410	Net Inc. vs Q410
Microsoft	Release		5%	Flat

* vs. Analysts' Estimates: Beat Met Missed

While many of the top Internet companies faced a volatile ad market in the fourth quarter of last year, Facebook saw its share of the overall online advertising market increase to 2.7 percent during the period. In fact, by the time 2012 is over, the social network could control up…

In the world of search advertising, mobile phones and tablets continue to outpace performance of search ads on PCs, although they still represent only a fraction of impressions and investment, according to a new report.

The PC business is not the most dynamic place to be these days, but fortunately for Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) it has a growing presence in the gaming and entertainment markets to offset slow growth in the PC market. Microsoft met expectations for profit and exceeded them for revenue as a…

		EPS*	Rev. vs Q310	Net Inc. vs Q310
Microsoft	Release		7%	6%

* vs. Analysts' Estimates: Beat Met Missed

With audience buying becoming the primary focus on online ad spending, analytics is likely to remain a hot funding area for some time. And that’s what Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) had in mind in deciding to participate in pay per click specialist Adchemy‘s $61 million funding round, as the software giant…

Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) is trying to drive awareness of Bing in Japan through Apple’s iPhone. This month, it launched TeleBing, a TV guide inside an iPhone app.

Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) is brushing off last week’s Breakingviews suggestion it should sell Bing, which lost $2.6 billion last year. Bing director Stefan Weitz tells paidContent it is changing its approach to search - but not getting out of the game…

As of this week, the internet will have three competing search engines in name only. On August 3, Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) will stop serving up its own search results in Europe; instead, it will get its search results from Microsoft’s Bing search engine.

Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) topped analyst estimates for both revenue and profit during its fourth fiscal quarter, perhaps calming fears that a PC market slowdown had taken its toll on the PC software giant. But revenue from its Windows division actually fell slightly amid tepid PC industry growth that was not…

		EPS*	Rev. vs Q410	Net Inc. vs Q410
Microsoft	Release		8%	30%

* vs. Analysts' Estimates: Beat Met Missed

Update: So now the mystery has been solved. Some time late today, the ownerships of the domain names thesunonsunday.co.uk and sunonsunday.co.uk flipped to News International, having originally be registered to unnamed parties. The domain thesunonsunday.com and sunonsunday.com are still registered to unnamed parties. In a meeting with News of the…

If you’ve been using Google (NSDQ: GOOG) to search for subjects across the web and on Twitter at the same time, you are out of luck, for now at least. After nearly two years of cooperation, the search giant has ended a deal with the microblogging service, which means those…

Google (NSDQ: GOOG) has had its ups and downs in China, and that presents a ripe opportunity for its competitors, both in China and closer to home in the U.S. Today, it is being reported that the Chinese search giant Baidu (NSDQ: BIDU) has signed a deal with Microsoft (NSDQ:…

It’s been almost 20 years since IBM’s Lou Gerstner got an elephant to dance. Now Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT), one of the companies that forced IBM to confront its problems, finds itself in need of a new dance partner who understands the realities of 21st-century computing. Steve Ballmer is not that…

Late last year, Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) began integrating its search results with Facebook—showing Bing searchers which results their friends “liked” on Facebook, for example. Today Microsoft has made a big expansion to that system, and is even using Facebook results to bump up links your friends like, which might otherwise…

Despite a weak market for PC sales, Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) once again topped analyst expectations during its most recent quarter, reporting a 13 percent increase in sales to $16.43 billion. Earnings per share came in at 61 cents. On average, analysts had expected the software giant to post sales of…

		EPS*	Rev. vs Q0110	Net Inc. vs Q0110
Microsoft	Release		13%	31%

* vs. Analysts' Estimates: Beat Met Missed

The handset maker and software giant may have already walked down the aisle as far back as February 11, but it was only today that they finally closed the deal on paper, complete with more details on who gets what out of it. The news comes on the same day…

Nearly two years after the debut of Microsoft’s Bing search engine, Microsoft’s share of the search market continues to increase. The latest comScore (NSDQ: SCOR) figures show that Bing now controls 13.9 percent of the search market, up from 13.6 percent in February, and 8 percent in May 2009, when…

Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) is making its iPad debut with an app for its Bing search engine. The app, which is available today, features a strip across its front page showing weather, news, maps, movies information, and search trends, making it more than just a touch-friendly way to access the search…

Some of the stories people are talking about this morning:»  Engadget’s Top Editors Topolsky and Patel Exit From AOL’s Giant Tech Site »  Postscript: Aggregation Aggro »  Pay TV Reverses Decline »  Microsoft’s Bing sees Twitter backlash for Japan quake campaign »  The Twisted Psychology of Bloggers vs. Journalists: My…