Whatever happened to the takeover battle between Microsoft and Yahoo?

After days without any leaks, spin, or rumors about possible white knights, an answer has emerged: not much.

Yahoo is still maneuvering, and Microsoft is still holding firm, mindful of a deadline next week for it to mount a proxy contest.

As a result, reports Andrew Ross Sorkin in the New York Times, Yahoo is considering pushing back the date of its annual shareholders meeting (and the deadline for a proxy challenge) to give it more time to come up with an alternative or to negotiate a friendly deal with Microsoft, while not being completely under the gun.

(Yahoo has now confirmed that it will extend the deadline for nominating directors to its board from March 14 to 10 days following the public announcement of the date for its annual shareholder meeting. That date has not yet been set.)

Yahoo can't take too much time. Under the laws of Delaware, where Yahoo is incorporated, the company has to have an annual meeting before July 13. And Yahoo already faces several shareholder lawsuits brought by investors who are pressing the company to negotiate with Microsoft.

Since Microsoft publicly disclosed its unsolicited offer of $31 per share on February 1, "everybody and their mother has looked at ways to scuttle" the deal, says Erick Schonfeld of TechCrunch. He reports that Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., after weeks of negotiations with Yahoo, late last week made a number of proposals, "including ones involving Google, private equity funds, and even one scenario involving Microsoft as a search-advertising partner."

Another alternative being weighed involves AOL. Kevin Delaney and Merissa Marr of the Wall Street Journal report that Yahoo has stepped up negotiations with Time Warner over folding AOL into Yahoo. Such a merger, which would include AOL's Advertising.com, would create an online advertising powerhouse, they note.

Henry Blodget on Silicon Alley Insider contends that such a deal makes a lot of sense, helping Yahoo become a real online advertising alternative to Google. A merger would increase their share of search, and there are better fits (AOL brands like Mapquest on Yahoo; Yahoo mail replacing AOL's "ghastly email system") than there are with Microsoft.

Blodget, however, acknowledges that such a merger is unlikely to happen. He, as well as virtually every other analyst and commentator, says that a Microsoft takeover is inevitable. The talks on alternative deals will only help Yahoo extract a few more dollars from Microsoft.

See Portfolio.com's full coverage of the Microsoft-Yahoo merger.