Last week, I and others asked what a finalized Google-DoubleClick deal would mean for Microsoft now, almost a year after the acquisition process was begun. Now, we can begin to see the answers.

An interesting collection of ideas at PR-inside.com says a Yahoo activist shareholder, Eric Jackson, suggests that the merger, which gives Google the display ad firepower it craved, means that a very strong number-two industry competitor is more necessary than ever, and a Microsoft-Yahoo merger could meet that requirement. The piece goes on to support this view with a substantial list of Asian competitors whose market share numbers stand to grow rapidly if Yahoo is weakened.

A similar belief that the merger helps Microsoft's chances with Yahoo -- a lot -- is voiced here and here.

The News.com piece includes insight from an antitrust attorney with experience in the European Commission, Luc Gyselen, who predicts that:

"I cannot imagine that Microsoft's past and current dealings with the antitrust part of the Commission's competition department would create spillover effects into the mergers field."