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Reuters reported that Microsoft’ said on Sunday said it was “considering and has raised with Yahoo an alternative that would involve a transaction with Yahoo but not an acquisition of all of Yahoo.” It did not clarify what that alternative might be.

Some speculate that Microsoft and Yahoo may form a partnership or joint venture for search-related advertising. Mr. Carl C. Icahn has announced his interntion to wage a proxy fight designed to force Yahoo into Microsoft’s arms, and he may not be happy with this latest overture, which some see as “Microsoft is trying to get the milk without buying the cow, and if you look at Icahn’s history, he has never been used that way,” said this person. “He does not want to see Yahoo pushed into some joint venture with Microsoft and is not going to be used to push Yahoo into it.”

Kevin Johnson, the executive in charge of Microsoft’s Internet business, emphasized the urgency felt at Microsoft about its failure to make more progress in catching up to Google.

“Regardless of the outcome of any new discussions,” he wrote, “it is important that we continue to move forward to strengthen our online services business. The fact is that we are not where we want to be in this business yet and we’ve been in this position longer than we’d all like.”

According to the New York Times, people involved in the confidential discussions between Microsoft and Yahoo said the talks centered on a partnership or joint venture for search-related advertising to compete against Google. When Microsoft first made its unsolicited bid of $31 a share for Yahoo in February, it said it was doing so as part of its battle to increase its relatively small slice of the search-related advertising market against Google, a giant with about 60 percent of the United States market, according to the measurement firm comScore.

By comparison, Yahoo has about 21 percent of the market, and Microsoft has about 9 percent, comScore said.

Yahoo continues to talk with Google Inc about a search advertising partnership, as we reported earlier, and a deal could come as early as this week, a source familiar with the talks said on Thursday.