Yusuf Mehdi, senior vice president of Microsoft's Bing unit, has been busy lately. First, there was his June 22 posting on the Bing Community blog, describing the search engine's new "Entertainment" page and features. Then he talked to USA Today about not only the upgrade, but also Microsoft's search-and-advertising deal with Yahoo.

That agreement, which will see Bing power Yahoo's backend search while Yahoo takes over worldwide sales-force duties for both companies' search advertisers, will apparently be implemented--if everything goes right--by the end of the year. In his comments to USA Today, Mehdi outlined the obvious hope of both companies, that their alliance will help them better compete against Google:

"Once we do the migration--this fall, hopefully--there will be two options. Everyone will still buy Google, but there will be a clear second chance to buy, with roughly 30 percent market share," Mehdi continued, according to the article. "Just being able to be a credible choice, for us, is a huge step forward. And that's what we'll accomplish with Yahoo."

Mehdi also reiterated the idea--previously voiced by Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz--that Yahoo will still offer its standard user experience, despite Bing performing backend search:

"Think of it as we're providing the engine for our car and for Yahoo's car, and Yahoo will be able to brad their car and provide some value on that." However, he added, "Once we start to merge with Yahoo, then we'll start providing some set of these [Bing] capabilities over to them, as well."

I had drinks the other night with a former Congressional lobbyist, who described Microsoft in the '90s as totally broadsided by the Feds' antitrust action: "They were running around saying, 'How can this be happening? We just make software.' They didn't quite get it, at least at first." In the wake of that painful saga, he added, Microsoft became a much savvier player in its dealings on the Hill; I can't help but think that, whenever a Microsoft executive rolls out these days with a comment like, "Just being able to be a credible choice, for us, is a huge step forward," it's with one eye toward the regulators.

Which is all well and good, but with Google occupying somewhere between 66 and 72 percent (depending on which study you use), and Bing hovering between 9.43 and 12 percent, Microsoft will need to display a little more aggression if it wants to move into a better competitive position. Adding Yahoo's search-engine percentage to Bing's overall total will help things in that regard; but as my colleague Clint Boulton pointed out yesterday, Microsoft has a long way to go before it starts making Google sweat.