Microsoft Gives Search Victory to Google Temporarily

Microsoft's CEO Steve Balmer admits defeat to Google in the battle for search engine power. The Financial Times reports Balmer saying:

"I do fault us for the speed with which we dove into search, primarily because we didn't see the business model. And I give Google credit for innovating in the business model around search. They did a nice job on that, and that's why they won."

However, Balmer is quick to add that the search engine war is far from being over and reminds everyone not to sell Microsoft short. Although Balmer is a confident man, he made a very bold statement considering ComScore's recent numbers.

May search engine rankings for Microsoft dropped 0.6 percent to 8.5 percent market share. Google peaked at its highest market share yet coming in at 61.8 percent. Yahoo came in second with 20.6 percent market share.

Microsoft continues to belittle the fact that it lost its bid to Yahoo, especially since Google and Yahoo have allied in search advertising. Balmer claims the software giant has many new tactics that will make them number one.

"There are some things that we just have to, as we say, ante up to be in the game: relevance, cap-ex, responsiveness. There are areas in which we're going to differentiate and make Google play catch-up."

It looks like Microsoft has its work cut out for it since according to ComScore, both Yahoo and Google's market shares are expanding, but Microsoft's is not.

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