Compared to say, used car dealers or ambulance chasing lawyers, pitches from Microsoft marketers come off as sophisticated and subtle. But compared to Apple's Steve Jobs, arguably one of the best product pitchmen of a generation, Microsoft's marketing comes off as tone deaf and out of touch. So anytime Microsoft puts out a video like the one embedded below — a bizarre commercial for Microsoft Touch, now installed at Las Vegas's Rio — some snarky blogger will happily point out all its flaws. Like how the men in the commercial seem cast from a Henry Nicholas pool party and the women from a cargo ship container full of eastern Europeans. So when you watch the clip below and the woman tells the man "You're so hot. Got Sunscreen?" and he responds: "Let's chill," please have pity and don't laugh too hard at Redmond's unluckiest.

Yahoo and Microsoft negotiators met for the last time on June 8 at Mineta San Jose International Airport. There, Microsoft executives told Yahoo's that it was definitively not interested in acquiring the entire company. But sources told News.com's Ina Fried, that in addition to a search outsourcing deal similar to Google's, Microsoft offered $35 per share for 16 percent of the company. Yahoo negotiators told Microsoft it could acquire the entire company or none of it. Microsoft rejected the offer. Ina Fried's Beyond Binary and Kara Swisher's BoomTown both report that one or more Yahoo board members are planning their departures, upset with the way negotiations turned out.

So what's everyone think of the Yahoo-Google search deal? Let's start with one of Yahoo and Google's Madison Avenue advertising customers:

In our post "Tech's 10 worst-rated CEOs, according to their employees" a Microsoft employee complains that the only way to get promoted is through "technical knowledge and political savvy." Not true, another Microsoft employee tells us. At least, not under Steve Ballmer's regime.

Yahoo has admitted defeat, under the guise of openness. The company will start letting Google sell ads on Yahoo search results, generating as much as $800 million a year for Yahoo; the increase comes from Google's superior efficiency at matching ads to search queries and milking money from advertisers. Intriguingly, the reason Yahoo gave for ending talks with Microsoft was that Web search was integral to its business. Search may be, but not the ads that run alongside search?

With the cool confidence inspired by sitting more than a little above the fray in the whole Microsoft-Yahoo fracas, Eric Schmidt sat down on Tuesday for a taped interview with Fox Business's Liz Claman, resulting in fifteen minutes of the smooth talker on video. Schmidt has been working a press tour leading up to the cessation of talks between Microsoft and Yahoo. At the beginning of this clip, he praises Microsoft's leadership and then suggests that they could be "hostile" with their market power. By the end, he's downplaying any presumption of antitrust litigation arising in the event of any partnership between Google and Yahoo, citing how competitive the space is. It's almost convincing.

Microsoft and Yahoo have released statements confirming reports that merger negotiations are off. In its statement, Microsoft leaves the door open for a partnership that would "ensure healthy competition in the marketplace, providing greater choice and innovation for advertisers, publishers and consumers." Yahoo, however, throws the deadbolt, saying:

Word that merger negotiations between Microsoft and Yahoo are over and that Yahoo plans to announce a search deal with Google has Yahoo shares plummeting on Wall Street. There's no word from corporate raider Carl Icahn yet, but with a Microsoft merger stymied, don't be surprised if the sudden drop is the result of Icahn and his friends leaving with their very large piles of cash in tow.

The anonymous blogger behind the MSFTextrememakover blog is hanging up the keyboard after his 100th post, and urges shareholders to divest their holdings in the software leviathan before it's too late. He cites the dismal release of Windows Vista contrasted with the polyanna positivism of upper management as one sign that the leadership in Redmond has its head in the sand — and no one is more culpable than CEO Steve Ballmer:

Microsoft will debut a Facebook for the enterprise called TownSquare at the Enterprise 2.0 Conference in Boston today. Microsoft Office Labs launched the product to 100 Microsoft employees in January and about 8,000 have signed up since, Office Labs GM Chris Pratley told Computerworld, which described TownSquare as "strikingly similar to Facebook.com." Similar? TownSquare does all the tricks Facebook's news feed does, updating users with changes their contacts made to various networked documents. So why did Microsoft stop at ripoff and not go for a complete copy? You'd think for its $240 million, Microsoft could of just "pulled a Zuckerberg" on some of Facebook's code and called it a day.

We're on to Round Two in our worst-tech-job contest. We've whittled down 10 terrible gigs down to five:

Boston University computer-science professor Azer Bestavros is a stickler for the school's academic code of conduct, which includes strict rules on plagiarism. But in nominating Microsoft executive Rebecca Norlander as a distinguished alum, Bestavros copied, almost word for word, Norlander's official biography. Bestavros automatically gives plagiarists an "F." What will he get for his nomination of Norlander, we wonder — besides more grant money from Microsoft?

One reason Carl Icahn wants to replace the Yahoo board is so that he can rescind the change-in-control severance package Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang put into place after Microsoft made its offer to acquire the company in February. Yahoo says that if Icahn's slate were to take over the company, that would itself be a "change in control" and would trigger the severance provisions. Given this latest obstacle, Henry Blodget wonders when Icahn will pack up and go home.

A group of Yahoo shareholders don't think Yahoo needs to be such a great place for employees to be laid off from. Lawyers representing the two Detroit police and firefighter pension plans that are suing Yahoo over its failed merger negotiations with Microsoft filed a brief demanding Yahoo rescind an employee severance package the lawyers and corporate raider Carl Icahn say dampened Microsoft's interest in a merger. The lawyers asked the lawsuit's presiding judge to hold a hearing to determine the severance package's fate ahead of Yahoo's August 1 shareholder meeting. (Photo by gruntzooki)

What does a poorly received speech today by Eric Schmidt at the Economic Club of Washington have to do with Hispanic IT workers? Nothing, really, and that's what Lista, the Latinos in Information Sciences and Technology Association, wants you to know. One has to admire the sheer Valley-like opportunism of Lista's Jose Marquez, who sent us five questions Schmidt didn't answer about the threat a search deal between Google and Yahoo poses to the people his organization claims to represent. One question we have for Marquez: Does your close scrutiny of a potential Google-Yahoo deal have anything to do with Microsoft's many partnerships with your organization? Marquez's curiously loaded queries:

Buying up billions of dollars in Yahoo shares and calling for a new board and renewed merger negotiations with Microsoft made corporate raider Carl Icahn come off daring and bold, if slightly confused. Now, with his latest later to Yahoo chairman Roy Bostock, Icahn just seems whiny. He begins his letter:

If you want to win a Boston University Computer Science Distinguished Alumni Award, it doesn't hurt if your employer has given hundreds of thousands of dollars to the BU professor who nominates you. Microsoft's Rebecca Norlander, BU '91), now serves as technical strategist to CTO Ray Ozzie. She's also the wife of Corporate VP J Allard, who also BU'91), won the first BU CS Distinguished Alumni Award by a unanimous vote of the Faculty. Norlander received her award last month at BU's Computer Science Convocation.

Robbie Bach, overseer of Microsoft's entertainment division, has been trotted out by PR to counter Apple's iPhone buzz. He trots out familiar numbers about Windows Mobile phones outselling the iPhone. (A challenge: try naming one.) And then he undermines his credibility by admitting to having four Zunes. [SFGate]

On Monday, Apple CEO Steve Jobs is expected to announce a relatively minor set of upgrades to the iPhone. Yet the world — and not just the tech world — waits with bated breath for the turtlenecked one to speak. How does Microsoft respond? With a 522-word memo from Microsoft mobile executive Andy Lees to "Our Windows Mobile Partners." Lees might have some good arguments in Microsoft's favor, but he buries them behind phrases like "It’s now my honor and privilege." Apple would just take our 100-word version, below, and turn each bullet point into a Mac vs. PC commercial.

Publicly, Microsoft, its CEO Steve Ballmer, and its chairman Bill Gates say the company no longer wants to acquire all of Yahoo. Yet corporate raider Carl Icahn continues to wage billions of dollars that a Microsoft-Yahoo merger could still happen. Is Icahn hearing something different from Microsoft than the rest of us? : "Obviously, he has talked to some of our folks," Ballmer told reporters. Icahn issued a nondenial denial when CNBC asked if he's been in communication with Microsoft: "I wouldn't say closely, and I wouldn't want to talk about it anyway, you know?"