NEW YORK (Bloomberg) - Microsoft Corp. has no plans raise its $44.6 billion offer for Yahoo! Inc., betting that staying put will give it more time to persuade the board to accept the bid, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Microsoft also has no immediate plans to nominate a board slate at Yahoo, the newspaper said, citing unidentified people familiar with the situation.

Instead Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft will wait and see if the US economic slowdown makes its $31-a-share bid more palatable to Yahoo, the Journal said.

Holding steady may increase pressure on Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang to succumb to Microsoft if no better bid emerges.

A weaker US economy and signs that advertising growth is slowing at rival Google Inc. may help to make Microsoft's bid look more generous, according to American Technology Research's Donovan Gow.

"As far as shareholders are concerned, this is going to be by far the best deal they can find," said the San Francisco-based analyst, who advises investors to buy Microsoft shares and does not own them. "Microsoft knows that."

Yahoo's stock had dropped 32 percent in the year before the unsolicited bid as Mr. Yang struggled to cope with eight straight quarters of profit declines.

The offer from Microsoft, the world's biggest software maker, is two-thirds more than Yahoo's closing price the day before the February 1 bid.

Yahoo fell 72 cents, or 2.5 percent, to $28.21 at 9.41am New York time in trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market. Microsoft rose 37 cents to $28.75.

Tracy Schmaler, a spokeswoman for Sunnyvale, California-based Yahoo, declined to comment. Representatives at Microsoft did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment.

Microsoft has pursued Yahoo, owner of the most-visited US website, to take on Google Inc., which dominates the markets for web searches and Internet advertising sales.

Together Microsoft and Yahoo had about one-third of US web queries in February, about half Google's share, according to Reston, Virginia-based researcher ComScore Inc.

Google's growth in clicks on advertising links has ebbed, suggesting the US economic slowdown is hurting technology companies. US gross domestic product growth slowed to 0.6 percent in the fourth quarter from 4.9 percent, and economists surveyed by Bloomberg on average project 0.2 percent growth in the first quarter.

Yahoo rejected the offer in February, seeking an alternative to appeal to shareholders.

The two companies held their first talks since before the offer on March 10, a person familiar with the situation said then.

Yahoo also was in talks with News Corp. about a partnership to avert a Microsoft takeover, a person with knowledge of the discussions told Bloomberg News in February.

The Journal reported that Microsoft executives felt Yahoo's presentations on its value failed to sway investors and justify its claims the company deserves a higher price.

On March 18, Sanford C Bernstein & Co. analyst Jeffrey Lindsay in New York called Yahoo's predictions of about 25 percent growth in the next two years "too bullish."

Yahoo has not set a date for its annual shareholder meeting. All 10 of its directors will be up for re-election at the next one. Last year's was held on June 12.