Timeline: The saga of Microsoft and Yahoo

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3 December 2008: Former AOL boss Jonathan Miller is reported to be planning a Yahoo bid.

4 December 2008: Yahoo board member Steve Icahn opposes the partial sale of Yahoo because he thinks it is undervalued.

10 December 2008: A Yahoo shareholder urges the web company to sell its search business to Microsoft, claiming it could double Yahoo's value.

14 January 2009: Carol Bartz joins Yahoo as chief executive to lead the company after Jerry Yang moves to his old role focusing on strategy and technology.

16 January 2009: It's revealed that Bartz was tempted away from her last role with a million dollar salary.

28 January 2009: Carol Bartz says that Yahoo is not going to be sold off or pulled apart, even after is posts a quarterly loss.

2 March 2009 - Financial filings show that the failed deals with Microsoft and Google cost Yahoo some $73 million.

10 March 2009 - Yahoo's revised severance plan is approved by courts, removing the "poison pill" package which would have made takeover difficult.

28 May 2009 - Yahoo's Carol Bartz says anyone wanting to partner with her firm on search would need "boatloads" of cash.

28 May 2009 - Microsoft relaunches its own search engine, renaming it Bing.

4 June 2009 - Bartz responds to the launch of Bing, saying the new search engine wouldn't pressure her into a deal with Microsoft.

17 July 2009: New rumours suggest Microsoft and Yahoo are to tie-up in a $3 billion deal - which would see the bulk of the cash going to Yahoo for the first few years.

20 July 2009 - Such rumours please activist investor Carl Icahn, who renews his call for a deal between the two firms.

29 July 2009 - Fresh reports say Microsoft and Yahoo are set to announce a search and advertising deal...

29 July 2009 - And for once, the rumours were right, as the pair announced a tie-up on search and advertising.

This story originally ran on 30 January 2009, but has since been updated.

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