Murdoch backs out of Yahoo! battle

London: Reports in the media have indicated that News Corp chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch has publicly acknowledged that he would not risk taking on the mighty Microsoft Corp by attempting a ''white knight'' manoeuvre to save Yahoo!

The Financial Times has quoted Murdoch as saying, 'We're not going to get into a fight with Microsoft, which has a lot more money than us.'

Now that News Corp is officially out, Yahoo!'s sole ray of hope is Time Warner. One possibility suggests that Yahoo! would absorb Time Warner's AOL portal, bartering it for Yahoo! stock.

'We're very happy to be in the Google camp,' the Hollywood Reporter had quoted Murdoch as saying while talking to investors at the annual Bear Stearns Media Conference in Palm Beach. MySpace, News Corp's online social network and Google are wedded by a web search deal. ''They sell our search advertising and pay us well for it,'' Murdoch was reported as saying by the Hollywood Reporter.