Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer feels intensely fortunate that his company ’s $ 44 billion command for Yahoo back in 2008 never materialized .

“ Sometimes you ’re favourable , ” he said with a grinning at Web 2.0 superlative , responding to a question from league co - chair John Battelle .

Careful not to shock his hunt market partner , Ballmer put his comment in context of use , say that any chief operating officer would feel grateful for not making a major learning in the months prior to the ball-shaped financial prostration that started in the second half of 2008 .

“ We would have been closing [ the Yahoo raft right after ] Lehman Brothers , ” Ballmer say , referring to the historical collapse of one of the bombastic financial institutions in the U.S. Microsoft made its offer for Yahoo in other 2008 and withdraw it several month later .

Of naturally , Yahoo has go along to struggle since 2008 , when Microsoft made its attainment bid , and this twelvemonth Yahoo ’s luck have taken a more steep downturn . CEO Carol Bartz was give notice last month , and this workweek the company announced that CTO Raymie Stata has been replaced , as the troupe struggles to emerge from age - tenacious fiscal and technology blue funk .

Although Ballmer made a point of saying that “ there are a lot of great matter about Yahoo ” and that he ’s very satisfied with Yahoo as a search partner , it ’s clear that Yahoo would be worth much less than what Microsoft offered for it in 2008 .

Since the ousting of Bartz , there have been unconfirmed rumour that Yahoo ’s board has been entertaining give-and-take about selling the company to AOL or Microsoft , and that Yahoo conscientious objector - laminitis Jerry Yang has stress to round up investors to adopt the company and take it private .

Ballmer also expressed satisfaction with the progress of Microsoft ’s Bing search engine in the past three years both in footing of utilisation and of technical advance in region like result ranking and relevance , as well as user interface .

Although Google remains prevalent in search , Bing ’s progress “ sets the stage for reinvent the class , ” Ballmer enunciate , point that Microsoft harbors Hope of eventually making a run at Google ’s leading position .

ask whether Microsoft design to launch a societal networking site in the vogue of Facebook and Google+ , Ballmer said Microsoft see online societal interaction as varied in nature , with dissimilar tool for dissimilar uses .

For example , Microsoft has products that represent in the social blank , admit of late - acquired Skype , which he views as tailored for interacting with the people one is close to , and its XBox gaming console , which allow for people to play over the cyberspace .

As for workplace swarm applications , Ballmer said Microsoft is “ all in , baby , ” contend head - to - fountainhead against Google in the segment for communications and productiveness suites , where Microsoft ’s Office 365 goes up against Google Apps and is “ make headway , winning , win . ”

This market for communication and productiveness applications is the most mature in terminal figure of adoption by business , while other area are n’t at that level yet , such as swarm - based platforms and line - of - business software package , he said .

Ballmer said Microsoft go on to forge script - in - bridge player with computer hardware manufacturing business to check that that Windows is present and optimise for a broad variety of devices , including screen background and laptop computer microcomputer , smartphones , tablets and others .