Microsoft Is Now A Domain Name Registrar

Microsoft is now an ICANN-accredited domain name registrar for the following top level domains (TLD's):

.COM
.NET
.ORG
.BIZ
.INFO
.NAME
.PRO

Microsoft can now get names within the above-listed TLD's at wholesale (e.g. the current wholesale price for a .COM domain name is $6.)

Should discount domain name sellers like www.GoDaddy.com be nervous about the new competition? No, not really. The M$ people are not likely to start hawking domain names any time soon. But they do offer free domain name registrations for users of their Office Live product, which is currently in beta. So, basically, cutting costs is a primary motivation behind the move.

Or is it? Maybe the primary motivation is to get access to domain name records, and use that info to improve the search engine results pages (SERP's) produced by their Live.com search engine, à la Google. Only M$ knows for sure.

So now both Google and Microsoft are ICANN-accredited domain name registrars. But what about Yahoo!? Why is Yahoo! still reselling through Australia-based Melbourne IT? They certainly have what it takes to be an official registrar, so why continue as a reseller? Doesn't make sense to me. Feel free to post a comment if you can offer any insight. Thanks!