Verizon, soon to become the biggest mobile phone carrier in the U.S., was about to close a search/advertising deal with Google back in June that would have put a Google search bar on the home screen of its phones and made it the default search engine in exchange for a share of the revenue generated by their users. Now, Microsoft tries to "steal" the deal from the Mountain View-based search engine by offering the company better conditions that Google did.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Verizon is now considering both offers, possibly waiting for a counter-offer from Google, which has been courting the carrier for several months hoping to bring the deal to a successful conclusion. Steven Musil from CNET describes how Microsoft's strategic move to enter Google's territory could have started back in February with the Yahoo! buyout offer, also explaining how the latest Redmond-based company's moves are interfering — or trying to do so — with Google's business plans in a competition between the two companies that is getting thougher every day.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said earlier today that the company has no intention to buy Yahoo!, just one day after Jerry Yang, interviewed at the Web 2.0 summit in San Francisco, said that Yahoo! was open for "any sensible offer" from Microsoft and that a deal could be feasible at the right price; now, Ballmer's intentions seem to be those of competing in the mobile phone industry.

Looking at the last six months, it is increasingly clear how Google and Microsoft are f

ollowing each other's steps very closely, as a further confirmation that competition in the search engine industry is more fierceful than ever. Ballmer in particular is known for the sometimes not so "politically correct" statements that are meant to discredit Microsoft's competitors: after his statements about the iPhone a few weeks after its first presentation, Microsoft's CEO released a statement yesterday in which he dismissed the Android platform, saying it is not a commercially viable solution for Google.

Today, Microsoft made another drastic move by aggressively seeking a deal with Verizon. As pointed out by an article appeared on AlleyInsider, the winner between the search and the software giant could wind up the one who will put the most guaranteed earnings on the table, investing on a future of a business that, even growing to a considerable rate, today doesn't affect more than ten percent of mobile phone users.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Verizon would be leaning towards Microsoft's offer at the moment, being the most generous. There are those who, however, object that for Verizon to complete such a deal with any search engine but Google would be a waste of money and resources, since a good portion of mobile users, used to conducting Web searches using Google, would simply change the default browser as soon as possible, therefore producing no source of income for neither Verizon nor Microsoft, and instead ending up benefiting Google.