Yahoo! announced today they signed an exclusive deal with HP, the #2 global PC vendor (Gartner statistic), to be the start-up home page for every HP PC sold in Europe and North America. Even better news for Yahoo! is that North American computers will include a co-branded Yahoo! toolbar installed on every machine once the new Internet Explorer 7 is launched by Microsoft.
This news comes after a similar deal was announced between Yahoo! and Acer computers. All-in-all, it appears that Yahoo! has a very clear picture of where it wants to be; in your face as much as possible.
What I find most interesting is that along with yesterday’s announcement of near statistical tie between Google and Yahoo! for the share of global local search, these PC partnerships may pave the way to a future where Google and Yahoo! have equal overall market share.
Fact and News Sources:
- Yahoo Press Release and,
- Gartner, Preliminary Worldwide PC Vendor Unit Shipment Estimates, Q2 2006.