Google CEO Eric Schmidt said yesterday that he still sees Microsoft as a potent competitor, even though its concerted and often acrimonious campaign to buy Yahoo now looks like it will pass into history.

"Microsoft has been a significant competitor with Google for a very long time," Schmidt declared, in a talk with reporters just before Google's annual meeting in the Silicon Valley.

"Microsoft is a very large competitor across all facets of Google for many reasons. Applications. Search. Advertising. Display. Microsoft is well funded, clever [and] smart -- and they have a lot of advantages nobody else has," said Schmidt, according to a "live blog" transcript from the press Q&A in California, posted by Rob Hof of BusinessWeek.

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Labels: Eric Schmidt, microsoft, Yahoo