Microdobe?

I find the timing of the article pretty ironic. Its interesting that you bring that up. I think you could be right that Adobe would be a good acquisition for Microsoft although merely talking about search Adobe doesn't fit will into that strategy. Microsoft is struggling to capitalize in search space and they obviously find it an important piece of the puzzle. At this moment Yahoo was their best fit in order to increase their market share. I am not quite so sure if they can do that with adobe.

Although i think a mash-up of Microsoft and Adobe technologies would be cool to see.

Partnering with Yahoo would have given them dominant market share in IM and Mail - which means more data to play with to beat Google out of the advertising/search market. Advertising/search brings revenue, unlike Flash or Silverlight.

I'm not sure why I'm not seeing it, but could someone expound on what "owning" Flash would even give MS, aside from bragging rights...

Flash going under Microsoft control would be a nightmare scenario for me. Noooo!