CNET News blogger Charles Cooper wrote this morning that the clock is ticking down for Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang to "unveil Plan B." Cooper also said that it's possible Microsoft believes Yang is bluffing and plans to pursue this deal through to a conclusion—all signs that we may soon see two of the biggest Internet portals struggling to combine all of their cell phone services, too.

Bill Gates said in an earlier CNET interview that he thinks the combination with Yahoo would "accelerate things in a very exciting way, because they do have great engineers, they have done a lot of great work. So if you combine their work and our work, the speed at which you can innovate and get things done is just dramatically more rapid," Gates said.

"So it's really about the people there that want to join in and create a better search, better portal for a very broad set of customers. That's the vision that's behind saying, 'hey, wouldn't this be a great combination?'"

Meanwhile, Henry Blodget said that his banking sources say this is a done deal in all but name, and that Yahoo probably won't be able to get any more money out of Microsoft. Meanwhile, there also hasn't been any word lately on Google's attempt to block the takeover.

Photo credit: The New York Times