14 DAY TRIAL // With all the tension between Google and Apple, and Facebook's growing threat, you'd be forgiven to believe that these are Google's biggest enemies. Not so, says Google CEO Eric Schmidt, the company's biggest competitor is none other than Bing.
Yes, Bing, which is about six time smaller than Google in the US. The US is not representative for the global market, in many places Google has an even stronger lead.
"We consider neither to be a competitive threat," he says about Facebook and Apple, leading WSJ's Alan Murray to respond "Oh, come on!"
"Our competitor is Bing," Schmidt added, with a straight face. "For years, everyone would ask about Microsoft. But now everyone has forgotten about Bing."
There is some truth to his words. At the moment, Google's revenue comes almost exclusively from advertising which relies heavily on search. In that sense, Bing is the main and pretty much only competitor since it started to power Yahoo search results as well.
And with Washington and regulators around the world breathing down its neck, Google would certainly want people believe that there really is competition in search.
He goes on to say that it's too early to tell if Facebook is a competitor for Google. He admits that it's a company "of consequence," but he is not worried at the moment.
And he says the social layer Google is working on will make every product better, with better information about its users, negating Facebook advantage, in a sense.
As for Apple, he says that, although the two companies to compete in a few areas, they also partner for a lot of things. Interestingly he notes the search deals, Google powers search for the iPhone and iPad, which he says have been recently renewed. This despite speculation that Apple might go with Bing as a search provider.