I've been out of the country for over a week, and thus I'm a bit late to the Microsoft-Yahoo party. But I saw that The New York Times had an interesting take on the subject that spoke to my green-tech sensibilities. The idea is, Redmond's not just seeking a bigger piece of the savory search pie; it's looking to build on Yahoo's technology platform and expansive user base to advance its Web-based software strateg I’ve been out of the country for over a week, and thus I’m a bit late to the Microsoft-Yahoo party. But I saw that The New York Times had an interesting take on the subject that spoke to my green-tech sensibilities. The idea is, Redmond’s not just seeking a bigger piece of the savory search pie; it’s looking to build on Yahoo’s technology platform and expansive user base to advance its Web-based software strategy and compete against Google Apps.I’m certainly a firm believer in the SaaS model. For the end-user, it means having the convenience of creating, editing, and sharing documents from anywhere you can get online. For an IT admin, it means fewer headaches maintaining software on user systems. And from a green IT perspective, it means users can get by with less expensive, less resource-intensive machines, since most of the processing and storage is being taken care of on the back end. That means companies get to spend less money on replacing and powering machines.As it stands, Google has been making rapid advancements in the world of SaaS (software as a service), having just recently unveiled a Team Edition of its Internet-based productivity suite. According to IDG News Services, more than 500,000 organizations have signed up for Google Apps thus far. Microsoft, meanwhile, hasn’t made much progress on the Web-software front. Yes, it has its Office Live Workspace program (currently in beta), but that’s really just an extension of the processor-hungry, hard-drive-bound version of Office. Yet surely the company can’t ignore the success Google is enjoying with Google Apps, which, again, is likely figuring in to its desire to buy up Yahoo.The future of SaaS certainly doesn’t hinge on Microsoft’s ability to snag Yahoo. If it does happen, though, I expect we’ll see some real Web-app innovation thanks to the combined mindshare of the two companies. In the meantime, I’m curious whether Microsoft, or Yahoo, for that matter, will show us anything that will compete with Google Apps.Ted Samson is a senior analyst at InfoWorld and author of the Sustainable IT blog. Subscribe to his free weekly Green Tech newsletter. Technology Industry