The two great companies have started their fight with search engines. They drew their swords and sparred for a while before Google crushed its opponent. The mobile market is the next to come and Yahoo! seems to be taking a headstart.

Yahoo mobile chief Marco Boerries is striving to close down all the possible phone distribution deals that "could deliver hundreds of millions of advertising customers before Google's own mobile strategy ever takes wing," as Eric Auchard rushes to notice. In an interview Boerries underlined that Yahoo's strategy when it comes down to advertising on mobile phones and making it as big a market as computer-based browsers is based on three-way partnerships involving device makers, network operators and web services.

Google, on the other hand, has recently announced that mobile software is the way it will go, it dubbed its project "Android" and signed on 33 initial partners of which Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile network operator and Taiwanese handset maker High Tech Computer Corp are so far the only ones committed to offering some phones next year. It looks like the Mountain View based company is in somewhat of a tough spot, because when revenue comes out of the ads it will deliver it is mostly going to be paid in subsidies to the carriers.

And Boerries says he can't wait for the "Android" to hit the market because Google announced it to be a truly open phone that other Internet services could run on. And what's to stop Yahoo from pushing its services through it?

"If 'Android' is truly open source, we can take everything out there," Boerries said of the outside possibility that Yahoo might use Google phone software and run Yahoo services over the devices. "Nothing prevents me from taking it," he said.

Dirty, dirty dancing indeed if Google doesn't take a stand soon and start being a little more aggressive.