This image was lost some time after publication.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer told the Financial Times that people who think Microsoft would be better off giving up on search and acquiring a company such as Facebook instead. People who say otherwise "don’t understand what they’re talking about."

The most important application for the foreseeable future is search. It’s where you start things. It’s where you express intent. It is important. I don’t think we can say, okay, well, we’re going to be in the ad platform business, and we’re going to do it just on the strength of non-search based assets. We have to be in the ad business, and we’ve got to have a good chunk of the search market

We disagree. Google owns Web search and search advertising and its not giving it back. Rather than chase Google in a race it can't win, Microsoft should acquire Facebook and see if it can make something real out of what Zuckerberg and company tried to do with Beacon ads.