WebProNews

Orbitz Partners With MSN On Travel Services

Orbitz Worldwide has announced that it has signed a multi-year agreement with Microsoft to be the online travel agency for MSN.com's travel portal in the U.S. and the UK.Orbitz.com replaces the Microsoft founded Expedia in the U.S. and affiliate ebookers.com will serve the MSN UK site.Orbitz says the deal could attract 3.5 million visitors per month to Orbitz through MSN Travel. Orbitz did not offer data on how many visitors it could bring to its ebookers site.

NBC Online Olympic Coverage Limited

NBC will provide over 2,200 live hours of the Beijing Olympic Games for online viewing, along with live blogging, daily recaps, and 3,000 hours of highlights on demand.NBC paid $3.5 billion to the International Olympics Committee to broadcast five Olympic Games through 2008. The event will only be available exclusively on NBCOlympics.com, with no other Web sites allowed to feature video from the Games online.

Microsoft Announces Plan To Acquire MobiComp

A little less than one week ago, Steve Ballmer ruled out a making-up-for-Yahoo acquisition spree.  This afternoon, his word remains technically good, since MobiComp is just one company and has little to do with traditional search and advertising.

Yahoo Rejected Microsoft Over Exclusivity Request

Even though Microsoft offered Yahoo a $9 billion deal to gain control of its search business, Yahoo would have been stuck with Microsoft as a search partner for ten years.

Microsoft Says Yahoo Deal Was About Search

Microsoft executives said the company does not plan to make a slew of Internet acquisitions since it ended its bid for Yahoo.There has been speculation that Microsoft would possibly buy Facebook, which it has a small stake in or Time Warner's AOL along with a number of other companies.

Google Top Video Property For April

U.S. Internet users watched 11 billion online videos during the month of April, with YouTube accounting for 4 billion videos according to comScore Video Metrix. Google sites again ranked as the top video property with more than 4.1 billion videos viewed (38 percent share of all videos) as YouTube accounted for 98 percent of all videos watched at the property.

Yahoo, Microsoft Deal Dead

Yahoo said today that negotiations with Microsoft on a partnership or other type of deal have ended without any agreement.Yahoo said in a statement,"Microsoft representatives stated unequivocally that Microsoft is not interested in pursuing an acquisition of all of Yahoo!, even at the price range it had previously suggested."

Microsoft, Kaiser Partner On Online Health Data

Microsoft and Kaiser Permanente, the largest U.S. health maintenance organization are partnering on a patient information exchange pilot program to allow patients to have more control over their health records.

Microsoft Looks To Improve Windows Mobile Music

Microsoft plans to concentrate on improving music in its next version of  Windows Mobile software for mobile phones.The company's mobile communications division provides operating systems for mobile devices based on the Windows Mobile platform. Microsoft's partners include Samsung Electronics, Motorola, High Tech Computer and Asustek Computer.

Microsoft Vaguely Aware It Kinda Sucks Sometimes

Eeyore, the donkey always missing its tail, always liked to thank people for noticing him. Seems like, when it comes to search, Microsoft has the same problem. SearchEngineLand's Danny Sullivan interviewed Microsoft's Kevin Johnson, president of the Platform and Services division, during today's keynote session at SMX Advanced in Seattle, and all roads led back to Google.