Google, owner of the most-used search engine, said Thursday that second-quarter profit more than doubled as the company took market share from Yahoo and Microsoft's MSN. Microsoft, the world's largest software maker, said fourth-quarter profit fell 24 percent after the company spent more on its Xbox video game console. The company announced plans to buy back $40 billion in stock. Google said net income rose to $721.1 million, or $2.33 a share, from $342.8 million, or $1.19 a share, a year earlier. Revenue rose 77 percent to $2.46 billion. Excluding commissions paid to other Web sites, revenue rose to about $1.67 billion. Google's Internet search engine is used about three times more than Yahoo's, according to ComScore Networks, and the results underscore Google's dominance in the market for search-linked ads. Unlike Yahoo, which this week reported sales that missed analysts' expectations, Google beat predictions with software that better targets ads to consumers. "The market for Internet advertising is growing. The market for search is even growing faster," said Morris Mark, president of Mark Asset Management in New York, before the report. Google is "sitting astride some very powerful fundamental trends." Profit, excluding stock-based compensation costs, was $2.49 a share, Google, based in Mountain View, California, said. Google's global share of Internet searches rose to 62 percent in May from 55 percent a year earlier, according to ComScore. Yahoo's share fell to 20 percent from 22 percent, while MSN's share fell to 9 percent from 10 percent, ComScore said. Microsoft reported that its net income fell to $2.83 billion, or 28 cents a share, from $3.7 billion, or 34 cents, a year earlier. Microsoft, based in Redmond, Washington, accelerated investments to get more Xbox consoles to market and catch up to Google in software programs that run over the Web. "Chasing Google is a waste of money," said Walter Price, who manages the Allianz RCM Global Technology Fund in San Francisco. He sold all of his Microsoft shares after an announcement in April signaled that spending on such initiatives would exceed analysts' estimates by about $2 billion. "Users and advertisers have already made up their minds, and it's hard to change that."
They used to say this about netscape. "It was the future for decades to come" they'd say. Google won't last forever.
Define better, please. Google has superior customer focus that even many of the Fortune 500 companies fail at, sometimes.
o u non sense.... how can it be... google is best of all and ill rap ur mama if nothing beats google.
It not going to be the best forever. Things change. The half of you are sounding like 15 years ago when people said Windows sucks, DOS is better.
oh well ... anyone has a crystal ball ? I rather look into what will be the lottery no. for the 6m prize this weekend
i will buy google and change it to be called moogle or something just give me a minute to get this clickbank portal working and i should have plenty of cash........