The on-again, off-again, on-again, off-again relationship between Yahoo and Microsoft may be back on-again but only if certain criteria and deadlines are met. First, Yahoo shareholders have exactly eight days to come up with a new candidate to replace Yahoo founder Jerry Yang. Which apparently is something they will only do if they can get some sort of assurance that Microsoft head Steve Ballmer is still interested (we've always been told that if he likes you he'll call).

Meanwhile, according to the Guardian Yang, himself, has exactly eight weeks (the annual shareholder meeting is set for July 3) to come up with a new deal with "another player" (some might refer to this as a rebound) or he runs the risk of letting Wall St "flay him alive."

For his part Microsoft founder Bill Gates says that following the dropped Yahoo bid the company is no longer playing the field, as it were. Somehow this seems doubtful, however we do suspect that by the end of all this backing and forthing Yang may actually regret not settling.