Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) the internet search and media company that continues to tango with Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) continues its attempt to prove its worth and strength with a press release today reaffirming its forecasts for the coming year.

The release claims cash flow may almost double to $3.7 billion in the next three years. Yahoo also predicted earlier this year that first-quarter sales for 2008 would be up to $1.38 billion with annual sales as high as $5.95 billion.

"Yahoo! is positioned for accelerated financial growth - we have a powerful consumer brand, a huge global audience and a highly profitable operating model," CEO Jerry Yang is quoted as saying in the press release. "With industry-leading tools, technology, people and platforms, Yahoo! is poised to capture growth in display advertising where we believe growth will be greatest. Combined with our recent progress in search monetization, Yahoo! is well positioned to provide the broadest range of products to our advertisers while delivering the most compelling experiences to users."

The obviously self-serving announcement is only the most recent in a long list of statements made since Yahoo rejected Microsoft's $44.6 billion unsolicited offer in February on the grounds that the price "substantially" undervalued the company - specifically, its stake in the number two Asian search engine.

Microsoft, the world's largest software maker, continues to pursue Yahoo while Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) also feels the need to get involved. Despite Google's recent acquisition of DoubleClick which raised concerns combined with a privacy policy that concerns watchdog groups, Google CEO Eric Schmidt predictably said, "We would be concerned by any kind of acquisition of Yahoo by Microsoft. We would hope that anything they did would be consistent with the openness of the Internet, but I doubt it would be." Translation: a Microsoft-Yahoo combination would be a competitive threat to our market domination and we at Google will say anything to stop it. Google is not an inept competitor, so such obvious concern about the deal bodes well for the logic of the acquisition and the advantages gained for Microsoft.

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