Amid its slumping smartphone business, Microsoft is reaching out to competitors to try to salvage the key assets of its mobile platform, namely mobile version of its Bing search engine.  Microsoft is reportedly in advanced talks with iPhone maker and longtime rival Apple to make Microsoft's Bing the default search engine for the iPhone.

The talks have reportedly been ongoing for two weeks now.  The pair would make strange bedfellows, surely, but they could form a formidable alliance to stand against Google's ever expanding legion of Android handsets.  And since Apple has no major search business unit of its own, the move makes sense from a purely financial standpoint for both parties.

One of the sources who leaked the news comments, "Apple and Google know the other is their primary enemy.  Microsoft is now a pawn in that battle."

The deal would reportedly switch the iPhone's default search from Google to Bing and would involve a partnerships to serve ads to iPhone users.  Currently, only Yahoo and Google are offered as choices for the default search.

Google reportedly pays Apple a flat annual fee to make its search engine the default.  Microsoft may be offering a larger bid, or perhaps a cut of advertising revenue to sweeten the deal.  Microsoft needs the business -- currently Bing sits at a mere 11 percent of November's smartphone search traffic, with Google controlling 86 percent.  As Forrester Research analyst James McQuivey states, "If you have to do a deal with the devil, you might as well deal with the devil that needs you most."