CORP TALK: After so many ups and downs, a partnership is finally formed between Microsoft and Yahoo in a 10-year deal with the common goal to eventually thwart the advances of Internet search giant Google, as reported by the BBC here.

The two companies will collaborate together, where Microsoft will use its Bing search engine (our report on Bing here) to power the Yahoo website while Yahoo will become the advertising sales agent for Microsoft’s online offering.

Prior to this, Yahoo has turned down several takeover bids from Microsoft over the past year. The deal will see Yahoo getting 88% of revenue from all search ad sales on its site (within the first 5 years) and it will have the right to sell ads on other Microsoft websites.

CORP TALK: DigiTimes.com has released a report stating that Dell will be fined NT$1 million (US$30,400) or more for not being able to satisfy compensatory demands from the Law and Regulation Commission of the Taipei City Government for recent pricing mistakes on its online store in Taiwan.

According to an eTaiwanNews report, the compensations offered by Dell included discount coupons in the values of NT$1,000 (monitor orders) and NT$3,000 (notebook orders). Buyers refused to accept the coupons.

The first pricing glitch happened from 11pm to 7am on June 25/26, where LCD monitors and notebooks were offered at low prices online due to the glitch. The mistake prompted many to put orders for it, before it was detected the next day and the online store suspended.

The second pricing glitch took place at midnight on July 4 to the next morning, when the Dell E3400 notebook was offered at NT$18,558 (when the original price was NT$60,900). The company suspended its online store and offered a NT$20,000 discount coupon, but buyers also refused.

The industry's first 1-terabyte hard drive for the 2.5-inch form factor.

CORP TALK: Western Digital has just announced two mobile hard drives — the highlight being one is a terabyte model for the 2.5-inch form factor category. The other model is a 750GB version.

With 333 Gigabytes-per-platter technology and a 3 gigabits per second (3Gb/s) transfer rate, the WD Scorpio Blue SATA 2.5-inch hard drives have a 12.5mm form factor and is suitable for portable storage devices. While most notebooks use the 9mm form factor, there are some notebook models, as well as small form factor desktop PCs, which will find these drives suitable.

The WD Scorpio Blue 750GB (model WD7500KEVT) will cost US$189.99 while the 1 Terabyte version (model WD10TEVT) will cost US$249.99. Both come with three-year limited warranties.

PROMOTIONS: IMG Expo organized the 3-day Lifestyle Value Expo 2009 on 24-26 July at the Singapore Expo recently and the event attracted over 50,000 visitors, thanks to a wide selection of lifestyle product and service offerings.

The event brought together partners such as electronics giant Gain City, The People’s Association, the Spa Association and SPH Magazines, offering great bargains and discounts from diverse exhibitors ranging from consumer electronics, spa and beauty, automotives, sports apparel, home furnishing to weddings.

One of the highlights included a live stage performance by the Bollywood Dance and Tai-chi trainers at the People’s Association as well as live yoga demonstrations by seasoned Yoga Masters. A national athlete who represented Singapore at the Olympics also made a guest appearance on stage where she played a friendly table tennis match with parents and young children.

Most important of all, shoppers to the event walked away happy as they got to enjoy great savings and bring home freebies and goodie bags. One shopper even walked away with a pair of return air tickets to London on the A380 in a lucky draw sponsored by Jardin Smith.

SHOWCASE: The team behind Singapore-based HWM and HardwareZone.com managed to get their hands on a Palm Pre from the US and produced a video showing its interface and features. Of course, if you’re not familiar with it, we’ve posted news about it here just to get you all warmed up.

Here’s the video:





For an extensive article on what the team thought about it, check it out here. If you’re asking whether it’s coming to Asia or when it would be available at all, we have no answer for you there. For now, the Palm Pre is on sale only in the US by telecom provider Sprint.