BeyondGenius.com

In a brief statement Sunday, Microsoft announced it was proposing a new arrangement with Yahoo that would not be an outright acquisition of the company. Yahoo said late Sunday that its board would give any proposal due consideration. Both companies have declined to elaborate.

Still hoping to jump-start its own Internet ad business, Microsoft has floated several ideas for combining forces with Yahoo, ranging from a revenue-sharing partnership to buying Yahoo’s search advertising operation.

Yahoo is under intense pressure to negotiate some kind of partnership or deal. There is a promise of a proxy campaign by billionaire investor Carl Icahn to oust Yahoo’s board and force a sale of the whole company. Icahn gave no sign Monday of backing away from his push to replace the current Yahoo board with directors who will support a sale. The activist investor, who owns 10 million shares of Yahoo stock, launched a campaign last week to unseat Yahoo’s board at its July 3 meeting. He criticized the company’s leadership for not striking a deal with Microsoft earlier this month.

While Icahn made no public statement on Monday, the Reuters news service reported that a “person familiar with his thinking” said Icahn won’t be satisfied with anything less than an outright sale to Microsoft.

Despite news reports Monday that Microsoft was pushing to buy Yahoo’s search advertising business, a person familiar with the situation said Microsoft has floated a range of ideas, without submitting any formal proposal to date.

“We believe that a core issue for Microsoft is to acquire Yahoo on friendly terms,” Ben Schachter, an Internet analyst for UBS Securities, said in a note to investors Monday. “A near-term deal could act as an intermediate step that would go a long way toward testing the waters.”

But analyst Sandeep Aggarwal of Collins Stewart said Microsoft more likely wants to buy Yahoo’s search advertising business, which he valued at $21 billion. Yahoo has other business assets, including an e-mail service and various content platforms, that Microsoft may not want, Aggarwal said.