Microsoft in alliance talks with a Tier 1 Internet compagny

[pwel]

A recent posting in a blog of a Microsoft program manager indicates that Microsoft may be seeking to match Google's cooperation deal with AOL. Ian McAllister writes that he "had a meeting the other day with some senior players at another Tier 1 Internet company."

This company, he continues, offered "to entertain ideas for working with Microsoft that would help our search and/or advertising business, with one of the goals being to prevent Google from dominating those spaces even more than they are now." This "Tier 1" company - he declined to reveal the name of the organization - "would help Microsoft level the playing field with Google in search and advertising."


So, which "Tier 1" company is McAllister talking about? The only hints the program manager leaves are that this company may be powerful enough to match AOL's Internet influence and that he is "99% positive" that the readers of his blog are a "customer" of that company.

The fact that he uses the word "customer" eliminates options such as Yahoo and drives the speculation about a possible deal into the direction of one of the major broadband Internet Service Providers such as Comcast and SBC/AT&T - which also offer cable TV and/or telephone services to a majority of the US population.