Microsoft's announcement that it has a deal with Hewlett-Packard is a boost for the company, as it tries to combat Google's dominance of the search engine space.
The deal - in which H-P agreed to put a toolbar leading to MSFT's Live Search on new H-P PCs - "is the most significant distribution deal for Live Search that Microsoft has ever done," said Kevin Johnson, who heads Microsoft's platform and services division.
The deal will take the place of one H-P has with Yahoo. The toolbars will start showing up on new H-P PCs in the U.S. and Canada in January.