Ballmer: Microsoft Will Beat Google Eventually
Microsoft CEO is realistic but optimistic about the competition.
During an interview yesterday morning, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer talked about his thoughts on Twitter, Yahoo! and Google. Ballmer shared a lot of interesting information (including the fact that he has a twitter account under an undisclosed username for personal use), but the most interesting part of the interview was the CEO's view on Google's number one position in the search market.
As you can imagine, Steve Ballmer gets asked about overtaking Google in the search space a lot. Ballmer yesterday said that it's a hard question to answer, stating that really, there's no such thing as a 'good' response.
"There's no good answer to this question. If you say yes you seem like you're arrogant and if you say no it looks like you have no faith. So the answer is yes, someday," Ballmer told Danny Sullivan from Search Engine Land.
Ballmer also said that Google's biggest asset is just that they were first. "The truth is, the number one thing Google benefits from is they did it right first," he said. Ballmer went on to say that search will be a bigger part of business for Microsoft going forward.
"I guarantee search is going to be a growing share of Microsoft's profits. That means it's first got to break even, then get bigger, but that's a growing share the way I do my math," he said. Ballmer said that Microsoft has also learned from Buzz, claiming that following the public backlash against Google's microblogging service, Redmond has been thinking more about piracy.

Maybe the same could be said of Microsoft Windows...
Xerox did it right first. They just priced it too high.
Apple than copied it and like Steve Jobs said, "Apple is not ashamed of copying great ideas."
Then Steve Jobs was forced to resign and he started NeXT. Which was priced like $500 more than the competitors but the competition costs over $5000 so $500 more for a system with a nice development IDE wasn't too bad.
Then comes Microsoft Windows. Bill Gates was smart enough to sell Windows to every PC manufacture cheaply. Before than OS's with GUI were locked to it's own PC manufacture, like Apple is still doing. When will they ever learn...
So that's how Windows succeeded. Not because they were first in anything.
Ba, Na, na, Na, na, na, naaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.
Dragon Punch! *smack* Dragon Punch! *groan* Hydoken! *grunt*
Ba, Na, na, Na, na, na, naaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.
Maybe the same could be said of Microsoft Windows...
So you can do all your epic solitaire gaming on a Mac??
Wait, does your math work differently than mine?
Xerox did it right first. They just priced it too high.
Apple than copied it and like Steve Jobs said, "Apple is not ashamed of copying great ideas."
Then Steve Jobs was forced to resign and he started NeXT. Which was priced like $500 more than the competitors but the competition costs over $5000 so $500 more for a system with a nice development IDE wasn't too bad.
Then comes Microsoft Windows. Bill Gates was smart enough to sell Windows to every PC manufacture cheaply. Before than OS's with GUI were locked to it's own PC manufacture, like Apple is still doing. When will they ever learn...
So that's how Windows succeeded. Not because they were first in anything.
Herbert_HA
"The truth is, the number one thing Google benefits from is they did it right first,"
Maybe the same could be said of Microsoft Windows..."
Yep always first to copy a good idea. MS DOS copy of CPM, Windows copy of Mac OS, IE copy of Netscape and now Bing a copy of Google. All of them second rate copies too, but if you give crap away people will use it. They sucker people in with "Free" stuff then gouge them. If you deal with MS prepare to drop your pants and bend over.
I think the only way microsoft would defeat google is if they put something into their code that doesn't allow you to use google (like they did with netscape - which I think they got sued for it), but I am sure that would create a huge backlash.
I'm sure piracy is always a concern for Microsoft, but I think in this instance you meant to say privacy.
+1 !
That's exactly what I said when BING was released. Simply because Google is an icon in society now, it would take A LOT to take it out, or surpass it in status. Personally I just don't think any company is capable of taking out such a societal icon.