WebProNews

Earlier this week, Jerry Yang insisted that it's in Microsoft's best interest to buy Yahoo, and that he doesn't regret any of what's transpired.  We compared him to Monty Python's Black Knight character.  Now, Steve Ballmer seems to have pulled a King Arthur and walked away from the whole mess.

"Look, we made an offer, we made another offer.  It was clear that Yahoo didn't want to sell the business to us, and we moved on," said Ballmer while at an event in Australia.  "We tried at one point to do a partnership around search, not advertising.  That didn't work either, so we moved on, and they moved on."

 Steve Ballmer

According to Alex Serpo, Ballmer then continued, "We are not interested in going back and re-looking at an acquisition.  I don't know why they would be either, frankly."

Those statements sounds pretty final, don't they?  Someone could find a way to extend this near-endless drama, of course, but we may well have arrived at the end of things.

At least a few investors appear to be of this opinion.  Microsoft's stock has crept up 1.68 percent in pre-market trading.  Yahoo's, meanwhile, has sunk 11.17 percent.

Perhaps more than ever, Jerry Yang needs to be shopping for flame- and pitchfork-retardant suits of armor.