Microsoft's Ballmer Throws Stones, Calls Google "Goliath"

Steve Ballmer talked to the BBC yesterday about Microsoft's struggles in search and said that Microsoft is “David” toGoogle's “Goliath” in the war for the search advertising market.

Ballmer says that Microsoft has come from nowhere to becoming a leading enterprise software company, but in search the CEO admits that Microsoft was late to the party:

“We probably missed the power of the advertising model, not so much the technology.”

Ballmer says Microsoft was later coming to search than it should have been, but the company is enoying it's role as the underdog in this struggle:

"We may be the David in this particular battle with Goliath but we'll work really hard at it."

But did Microsoft miss the boat on search, where Ballmer says "all the
Internet money is"?

"Do I wish we'd started that investment [in search] a few years earlier? Yes."

Photo: BBC