With Microsoft mum, analysts mull next moves for Live Search

For now, Microsoft seems focused on going alone, though the company declined to make executives available to talk about its online plans. In Japan, Chairman Bill Gates told reporters Wednesday that "at this point Microsoft is focused on its independent strategy."

Just two days before Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer walked away from the Yahoo bid, he outlined to employees a four-part plan to "build the most interesting position in the world in online advertising, media, and the kind of social connected search and media experiences that go along with that."

First, Microsoft must do the basics -a huge search index, lots of storage in the cloud for users -very well.

It must innovate in "quick waves" that force Google to play catch-up.

It must "change the basic experiences" of communication and search.

And it must gain scale.

"We have a strategy and we have ideas in each one of those categories," Ballmer told the employees.

The promise fell flat with analysts who had heard it so recently before.

Part of Microsoft's trouble is all the attention that Google gets. After all, no one uses Microsoft as a verb for search.

Danny Sullivan, editor in chief of the industry news site SearchEngineLand.com, said Microsoft's Live Search has innovative features people would really like.