by News Editor
L. Sutherland
L. Sutherland
With the web abuzz with reports of Microsoft's recent search offering Bing, it's no surprise that Google has spoken up about its competitor - and dismissively at that. In an interview with Fox Business Network on Tuesday, Google CEO Eric Schmidt announced that the Mountain View giant was unconcerned by Microsoft's fresh challenge.
The Register reports that Schmidt indicated his lack of concern stemmed from Microsoft's past attempts to shake up the market - a pattern of which he does not believe Bing will be the final product.
He said: "It's not the first entry for Microsoft. They do this about once a year."
However, recent stats from Hitwise suggested that, while Bing's initial success could have been boosted due to public curiosity, the amount of time that users are spending on the site indicates they may be utilising the engine the way it was intended rather than just stopping by for a look.
Schmidt doesn't appear to believe that Bing's arrival is enough to prompt Google into changing its game plan, however, adding: "I don't think Bing's arrival has changed what we're doing. We are about search, we're about making things enormously successful, by virtue of innovation.
"Google is about getting all the information and organising it. Yahoo has a different strategy. We think ultimately Bing will evolve to a different strategy as well."
While Bing has improved Microsoft's share of the market since its launch in June, Microsoft still dwindles in third place, with Google well out in front and Yahoo! hanging on grimly in second.
Tuesday also saw Schmidt reveal some of Google's future strategy plans. He indicated that the search king would be keen to acquire small tech firms to boost its tech portfolio and are particularly considering cloud, mobile and open source distribution software outfits over the next year. If Microsoft is considering the same, we can expect a race to secure the best new tech as well as the top search spot on our hands.
