Other articles by Bob Keefe:

IPhone: cool as can be, but oh, that price With a wary eye on competitors, cable firms chase new products Intel ready to unveil array of technologies Greenpeace chides Apple again on environmental policy Instant-messaging field a playground for hackers High-tech once again a priority for Mexico Bush: Deporting won't work Marchers in streets; more are due today Global move on to limit U.S. control of Internet Organized crime gets online

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Jorgensen Brooks Group
Counselor Administrative & Professional
Tucson Urban League
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Komatsu Equipment Co
Resident Field Mechanic

LAS VEGAS — In a move aimed at archrival Google Inc., Microsoft Corp. has struck agreements to give its Internet search engine preferred treatment on most new Dell Inc. consumer computers and some Verizon Wireless cell phones.

The agreements, potentially worth hundreds of millions of dollars for Dell and Verizon, come as Microsoft continues to lose ground in the search business following its failed merger talks with No. 2 Internet search provider Yahoo Inc.

Internet search, usually tied to online advertising, is widely seen as one of the most lucrative Internet businesses.

According to research company comScore Inc., Google handled almost 64 percent of all Internet searches conducted in November, compared with Yahoo's 20 percent and third-place Microsoft's 8 percent.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was planning to announce the search-engine agreements Wednesday night in his keynote speech kicking off the annual International Consumer Electronics Show here.

The agreements with Dell and Verizon are major coups for Microsoft and Ballmer, who last year became the company's undisputed leader after founder Bill Gates left to spend more time on his philanthropic efforts. Gates was the traditional CES kickoff keynoter for 13 years, beginning in 1995, but the company said he wasn't planning to attend the show at all this year.

Under the agreements, Microsoft's search engine would show up automatically on the desktop screens of most new Dell consumer PCs beginning in February. It also would be the default search engine for Verizon handsets for at least the next five years.

But because the arrangements aren't exclusive, Microsoft says they don't violate a 2002 antitrust agreement with the U.S. Justice Department. The pact settled charges that Microsoft abused its monopoly power by embedding Internet Explorer in its Windows operating system and bullying PC makers to make it the default Web browser.

Ballmer wasn't expected to release any details about the deals. But analysts have estimated that Microsoft could pay hundreds of millions of dollars in cash and shared advertising revenues to Verizon and Dell in exchange for the prime space on their hardware.

Matt Rosoff, lead analyst at Directions on Microsoft, an independent technology research company, speculated that Microsoft will use money previously earmarked for a buyout of Yahoo to pay for the deals.

"Microsoft looks at what Google has been doing in search, and they see a big, big opportunity," he said.

The agreement with Dell also could threaten a similar deal the Round Rock, Texas-based computer maker made with Google three years ago.