In an email to Microsoft employees this morning, CEO Steve Ballmer explained the company’s planned search advertising partnership with Yahoo and sought to reassure workers whose current jobs could be cut as a result of Yahoo taking over premium search advertising sales for both companies.

"Given the huge opportunities in search and online advertising, we plan to redeploy most if not all affected employees into new high-priority functions," Ballmer wrote in the message. Read on for the full text.

As you’ve heard me say many times, search is a critical business for us. We took a major step forward two months ago, when we announced Bing. Already, Bing has generated huge buzz, great reviews, and early usage figures ahead of our expectations.

Today we’re taking another important step in redefining search and search advertising. Later this morning, I’ll be announcing a partnership with Yahoo in a conference call with Yahoo’s CEO Carol Bartz. This deal is a win-win for Microsoft and Yahoo. We will get the resources and scale we need to compete effectively in search and to continue to drive new innovation for customers and advertisers, while Yahoo will increase their focus and investment on their online consumer experiences and other business priorities.

As part of the deal, Bing will become the search and search advertising platform for all Yahoo properties, and we will acquire the rights to Yahoo’s search engine and advertising platform technology. The combination of Bing and Yahoo’s scale and technology will accelerate the improvement of search – we’ll be able to add new features and improve the relevancy of search results more quickly than ever. And with expanded scale, we’ll be able to offer advertisers greater return on their investment.

There will be tremendous efficiency gains for both companies. Microsoft will assume responsibility for constantly improving search and search advertising technology on behalf of both companies. We see so much opportunity improve search on behalf of our customers – to make search more relevant and more useful to consumers, and more than just a list of blue links. Yahoo will assume responsibility for search advertising sales to certain premium customers on behalf of both companies. Given the huge opportunities in search and online advertising, we plan to redeploy most if not all affected employees into new high-priority functions.

Given the importance of the search marketplace, this proposed agreement will of course require careful review by regulators, which will take some time, but we believe it will strengthen competition and choice.

It’s been a long road to today’s announcement, but I’m extremely happy with where we ended up. This agreement will help bring choice and transparency back to consumers, advertisers and publishers. It will accelerate our efforts to restore competition to the search market currently dominated by one company. And it’s a huge validation of our strategy to redefine search, and all the great work the Bing and adCenter teams are doing. This deal will accelerate our efforts toward long-term success in search and search advertising.

You can learn more at a joint website we’ve established, which provides a summary of the deal and the advantages it will provide for consumers, advertisers and publishers.

Steve

Previously: What Yahoo deal could mean in Microsoft’s Google battle

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and Are we seeing a rebound in clean tech venture capital deals?  

A new report released today by Ernst & Young indicates that venture capitalists may have regained their appetite when it comes to investing in clean tech companies such as alternative fuels, batteries and geothermal energy. VCs invested $572 million in the sector during the second quarter, a 73 percent increase over the first three months of the year.

Meanwhile, the number of deals — at 48 for the quarter — represented an 100 percent increase.

The numbers caught my eye since I am about to jump on a call with a cleantech company about a new financing deal. We’ve also reported a number of other clean tech deals recently, namely Blue Marble Energy, Bio Architecture Lab, General Biodiesel and Prometheus Energy/Heracles Energy.

Could this signal a thawing of the venture business as it relates to clean tech deals?

Some believe as federal stimulus dollars enter the sector the dollars could continue to flow.

"Barring any sort of major capital market event, I do think that we’re going to see a continued drumbeat of activity," Joseph Muscat, Ernst & Young’s Americas cleantech director tells The Associated Press. 

While investments increased on a quarter-over-quarter basis, they were still down when compared to the record levels of last year.

[Flickr photo via Mingo.nl]

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and ‘Leaving on a jet plane’ with a new ad for Bing Travel  

We reported two months ago about how Microsoft is using the technology it acquired from Seattle upstart Farecast to make a big play in the travel search business. Now, Microsoft is promoting its Bing Travel service — including the Farecast airfare prediction engine — in a new advertising campaign.

Ars Technica says the ad represents a step in the right direction for Bing.

I bet 18 months ago the Seattle-based Farecast team never imagined they’d be part of national ad campaign, one which highlights a crucial chess piece in Microsoft’s assault on Google.

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Targeted Genetics’ stock sinks after notice of Nasdaq delisting  

The bad news keeps piling up for Targeted Genetics, the struggling Seattle biotech that’s on the brink of closing its doors. Today, the company received a letter from the Nasdaq indicating that the stock will be removed from the National Capital Market on August.

Targeted Genetics — which posted a negative net worth last year tied to $7.6 million restructuring charges — plans to appeal and is requesting a hearing on the matter. The Nasdaq notification follows a series of bad news at the company, which has said it could run out of cash in August.

Last week, the company set in motion a plan to terminate its lease at its 38,000 square foot headquarters in Seattle.

"We expect our facility requirements to be significantly reduced compared to our requirements for supporting past activities, and we consider it important to have the option to scale down our facility utilization and obligations in alignment with our smaller business structure," Chief Executive B.G. Susan Robinson said at the time.

That followed the termination of a lease at a Bothell manufacturing facility.

Meanwhile, the company — whose stock fell another 20 percent today — has reduced staffing levels from 70 to 15 people over the past nine months.

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