Steve Ballmer gave an interview to BusinessWeek, where he mentioned that Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) the brand will remain if the company’s proposed acquisition offer goes through. He didn’t say in in the story, but does that mean MSN will go out of the window? Considering MSN’s weaker branding pull beyond its default traffic funnels, that wouldn’t be a huge surprise, at least in U.S.

Then, between Microsoft’s (NSDQ: MSFT) adCenter and Yahoo’s Project Panama on the targeted ad side, it looks like the former might take precedence. Tarek Najm, a distinguished engineer at Microsoft and adCenter’s general manager, said this when asked about what Panama technology he’d like in his product: There isn’t any. “We’re the leaders in technology…Ours is better.”