Times are tough for car makers, so Ford’s CEO Alan Mulally is going the extra mile by delivering cars to customers himself.

Unfortunately you have to be CEO of a very large company to qualify. Here’s Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer taking possession of his new Ford Fusion Hybrid at the software company’s Seattle-area campus.

 
“This is awesome!” Ballmer declared, before climbing into the car for a quick seminar on how it works. He didn’t seem too interested in the fuel consumption figures, but said his wife insisted on a hybrid.

The car was the millionth with Ford’s SYNC system — powered by Microsoft technology — which allows you to control a phone and play music with voice commands. So people in the back seat can embarrass you by shouting “Play Abba”.

The high-octane double-act of Ballmer and Mulally — CEO pitch-men par excellence — seals an interesting alliance between Seattle and Detroit. Ford’s Mulally lived in the Seattle area in his 30-plus years at Boeing’s nearby commercial plane operations, while Ballmer’s father — who raised his family in and around Detroit — was a long-time Ford employee, starting in the company’s financing unit in 1950.

(Updated with more quotes)

If you're losing the game, time to change the playing field. Yahoo is counting on exactly that.

Ari Balogh, Yahoo's chief technology officer and product development czar, would be among the first to admit that Google reigns supreme in the search space.

"Search the way we know it, with 10 blue links, Google has clearly won that game. Saying anything other than that is just not stating the fact," he told the Reuters Global Technology Summit.

But Balogh says that doesn't mean Yahoo is giving up. Inviting comparisons to the automobile industry, now infamous for bankruptcy, ballooning debt and clunky design, Balogh says innovation in search is only just beginning, and it's too early to declare a winner yet. Ford and its Model T was once the pre-eminent mass-consumer vehicle, but today the once mighty Detroit giant -- the only one of the surviving Big Three that doesn't appear to be flirting with corporate failure -- has to fend off the likes of Toyota and Hyundai.

What's important to understand though is this really is like the auto industry in 1910....At that time, in 1915 or 1920, it sure looked like it was going to be Ford.

Because of the rapid innovation that's going on, because if you look at that search page, it is an anachronism. When has advertising ever been so ugly in the last 10, 15 years? When has the onus of sorting through a pile of stuff, that much of a pile of stuff, ever fallen on people to do themselves?

There is a long way to go.

So what will the next generation of search tools look like? Balogh says:

There will always be a search kind of like the 10 blue links, but how important that's going to be in the 3.0, 4.0 versions of where the Web's going really remains to be seen.

I believe search is going to be far richer. Search is going to be about getting that relevance in that intent flow -- whatever it is you're trying to do. And there's a whole other round or two to go in the search game and that's where we intend on playing.

Where else is Yahoo lacking? In social networking, Balogh says. But Yahoo is now ramping up both its look and its usability, focusing on helping users connect with news, with other people, and otherwise get things done.

That will entail remodeling its front page continuously, launching new features from fantasy sport applications to programs that aid movie selections, and making them useable on both the cellphone and the computer. The first features will be trotted out in the summer, Balogh says.

"We're going for the long play here."

Ford CEO Alan Mulally unveiled new features of its voice-command activated in-car system Sync yesterday at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, highlighting its connectivity with a driver’s other devices, including cell phones and personal computers.

Mulally then showed off a futuristic dashboard featuring an electronic personal assistant, Eva (for Emotive Voice Activation). In a small video clip of how it could all work, the Eva avatar engaged the driver in conversation and performed tasks like scheduling appointments. It’s the next generation of Ford’s Human Machine Interface (HMI) strategy, Mulally said.

“Everyone is growing up with a connected device and they don’t want to be disconnected,” Mulally told Reuters in a brief interview after his CES keynote address. Ford’s hoping its Sync service, developed with Microsoft and launched 18 months ago, will appeal especially to younger car buyers. Earlier, he’d said his five kids are his “focus group,” often e-mailing him articles about new gadgets and trends from Wired.com and other sites.

“We’re learning to think like an electronics company,” Mulally said.  But even though Mulally might want to bring Detroit closer to Vegas, reporters who thronged him after the keynote hardly let him forget he was an autos guy, and a Big Three CEO at that.

“How did you get to Las Vegas from Detroit?” one reporter asked. “I walked,” Mulally quipped.