I read to today from the BBC that Microsoft are “hiring a firm that specialises in proxy battles” in order to get rid of the current board of directors at Yahoo. A good way to gain the sympathy of the shareholders vote to secure the Yahoo deal ?

No, probably not. Never the less this does push Yahoo into moving quicker. You have to admire the commitment in following the Yahoo bid and tactics like this have been used before by other Search Engines. Business is business. In any event Microsoft will eventually gather more and more kudos for advertising and online search.