Bill Gates has said that Google's honeymoon is coming to an end. We test the hypothesis
Why is Microsoft shooting its mouth off?
Two Stanford students Larry Page and Sergey Brin incorporated Google as a private company in 1998. Today, Google pulls in over $20 billion a year in revenue. Google revolutionised the search engine space and forced established players like Microsoft, Yahoo and AOL to change their strategies. Yet, Microsoft executives are not impressed. Gates’ statement comes even as his company joined hands with Yahoo to ward off Google threat. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, called it a “one trick pony.” That’s because over 97 percent of Google’s revenue comes from search-based advertising.
(This story appears in the 28 August, 2009 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)