Microsoft not shopping for other companies

Battered and bruised after Yahoo battle

7 May 2008 14:23 GMT / By Katie Scott

Yahoo execs may be up for more talks, but Microsoft isn't interested, and, more than that, it seems the computing giant may have put away its credit card for a while.

Microsoft boss Bill Gates has told journalists at a conference in Tokyo that the company isn't going to pursue other deals following the withdrawal of its $47.5 billion takeover bid for Yahoo late last week.

Gates said that his company had put "a lot of effort" into talks with Yahoo and had eventually decided that the two should pursue "independent paths".

"Now at this point Microsoft is focused on its independent strategy", he said.

The bid for Yahoo had been mooted as a way for Microsoft to take on Google in the search engine field, but now Gates says that Microsoft will make "advances" on its own.

"We will make the advances that give people a great choice there", he said.