Yahoo has agreed to a deal with Hewlett-Packard to have Yahoo search and other services appear on HP personal computers sold in the United States and Europe, the company said on Thursday. The Internet media company said HP has agreed to feature a co-branded Yahoo/HP Internet toolbar on HP computers and to make Yahoo the default search service in Microsoft's upcoming Internet Explorer 7 on HP consumer desktop and notebook PCs.
Yahoo spokeswoman Kelly Delaney said financial terms were not being disclosed.
Yahoo is in a race with rival Google to win exclusive positioning of their services within the products of major hardware and software makers. The competition anticipates the arrival of a new version of Microsoft's Internet Explorer, the dominant software for browsing the Web.
The deal gives HP computer users instant access to Yahoo search, e-mail, news and finance links.
Effective immediately, Yahoo's home page will be featured on consumer PCs in Europe, Yahoo said in a statement. In North America, HP consumer PCs will come with an Internet browser toolbar that features links to Yahoo services, and Yahoo will be the preferred search service on the forthcoming Internet Explorer 7 browser.
Google has signed a string of such deals with No. 1 PC maker Dell and software makers like Adobe Systems, Intuit and media companies like News Corp., but in recent weeks Yahoo has shown momentum by signing partnerships with PC makers Acer Inc. and HP.
The multiyear distribution deal with Acer calls for Yahoo Web services to be featured on Acer computers. Acer is the world's No. 4-ranked computer notebook maker, the top supplier of PC notebooks in Europe, and the third-ranked manufacturer in Asia.
Similarly, Yahoo has existing deals to feature its Web search tools with major broadband communications providers in Britain, Canada and the United States.
