Whenever Steve Ballmer talks, we all know it is Microsoft. The Microsoft CEO, will definitely not count his words while speaking about Microsoft.

So when Steve Ballmer, was questioned by Search Engine Land Editor in Chief,  Danny Sullivan, at the Search Marketing Expo in Santa Clara, California, on March 2, 2010 , let’s see what the CEO, Microsoft talked on Microsoft’s Bing, Windows Phone, Twitter and Google.

Let’s look at what the gentleman, who knows to play his cards right, said.

Bing!

He certainly binged on ‘Bing ‘, the Microsoft’s decision engine.

Ballmer did not deny the possibility of association with apple, just kept it slightly glanced off by mentioning, “A Bing for iPhone search deal is still possible”.

He mentioned that Windows Phone 7 series, unveiled on Feb 15^th in Barcelona, Spain, will definitely use only Bing as the Search engine. It was not made clear whether the smart-phones running windows mobile 6.x would be upgradable to the new operating system.

He also stated that,” Microsoft isn’t interested — at least for now — in releasing a Bing application for Android phones.”

Raw Twitter posts, buried in Bing, will they come up?

On Microsoft’s association with Twitter, he swerved the question by mentioning that though the partnership with Twitter is great, they are not sure about acquiring it. He said that as an independent company, Twitter has lot of value and creditability.” Would they have that same credibility with the user community, if they were captive?” he questioned back.

Has Bing been improving its offerings, in an attempt to eat away at Google’s share?

When queried about what future he sees for Bing against competition, the big wheel said, “There’s no good answer to this question. If you say ‘yes,’ you sound arrogant. If you say ‘no,’ you sound like you are happy with second place.  No one aims to be second, so the answer is ‘yes’”.

When asked whether he believed Microsoft would eventually overthrow Google in search, Mr. Ballmer said, “I don’t know how old I will be when that’ll happen”.

Looks like Mr. Ballmer admits that Google dominates the search engines.

Stirring up trouble for Google in Europe through third parties,

When Danny Sullivian confronted him on the article by the Wall street Journal on Microsoft steering third parties to push against Google in terms of antitrust issues, the suave entrepreneur handled the question with ease. He admitted that Microsoft had been in discussions with antitrust regulators over its search-engine rival being scrutinized by a number of government agencies, ranging from the Federal Trade Commission to the Department of Justice.

The CEO certainly knows to make hay while the sun shines.

A trademark application was filed by Google, Inc. in U.S. on the 10^th of December, 2009, for Nexus One. Nexus One, is the name of the upcoming Google Smartphone, and for which one trademark was filed in International Trademark Class 9 for “Computer & Software Products & Electrical & Scientific Products” with a description of “Mobile Phones.” This filing was with an intent to use a trademark, indicating that the name may be used and associated with the upcoming Google Smartphone.

Nexus One is that upcoming smart phone from Google rumored for a possible January 5^th, 2010 release. This Smartphone from Google will run the Android mobile operating system and expected to be manufactured by HTC Corporation. Google has earlier confirmed that they had begun internal testing of the device through their blog post dated December 12^th, 2009. Stating that a ‘mobile lab device’ has been given to its employees, but without confirming that it would eventually end up in the consumer markets.

We’d keep our fingers crossed until then as this device might just be here to enrich the Google Goggles concept. We will not have to wait long this New Year 2010 might just be beginning with a bang. Google sure has a few aces up in the sleeve, and might decide that this is just the right moment for letting one out. A great surprise and a great way to begin a New Year, we all are always looking forward to what Google is up to next. Google is all set to change and direct innovations on the World Wide Web.

Search and advertising, we are a small share….It’s all about Google. They have share, we don’t have share.

These were the words of Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer back in February. He did accept that nobody has any competitive edge in the search and advertising space other than Google. Its a complete monopoly by Google, but now Microsoft has come up with their new search engine – Bing. Here’s the video of Steve Ballmer announcing the debut of Bing from the D7 stage.

So, how much of an impact does the arrival of a new search engine makes to Google? Well only time will tell. But one thing is sure that its gonna take something out of the world to beat Google in their game.

Probably the arrival of Bing has created lot of ripples in the industry. Every day there is so much spoken and written about Bing, its positives, its negatives, its features and many more points. Almost everyone associated with the search engines has been publishing their views, thoughts and reviews about Bing and whether it can displace Google as the #1 search engine.

But Paul Savage, a web programmer and SEO specialist had other ideas to when Bing was launched. Instead of reviewing it, he developed a cool tool which allows you to compare search results for Bing and Google at the same time.

I tried searching for the keyword – ‘i am sam’ and here is the screen shot of what I could see.

Now its interesting to note that both these search engines are giving different search results. I won’t dwell into the review part, but one thing is for sure that Microsoft has made it very clear that they are not going to allow Google to play the monopoly. It has been a long time that Google has been the most used search engine, and Yahoo and Microsoft have been fighting for the remaining bits and pieces, but not any more. MS has taken the first step to make this search industry more competitive and I am happy about it. This is so because this competition will give us a chance to witness some great innovations that may be round the corner.

By the way, if you are a Yahoo faithful, you are not lucky enough to compare the results for Yahoo and Bing. I am afraid, you will have to stay contented with search results for Google and Yahoo for the time being.

After nearly 9 months of exile, Google co-founder Sergey Brin updated his blog last week.

This time he chose to write about his friend, advisor and mentor – Rajeev Motwani. Few days back, Rajeev was found dead in his pool and this shocked many people, especially the Stanford University fraternity. Sergey highlights how Rajeev helped him and Larry during their student days and also during the formation of Google. Though the post is not emotional but it does add the 4th post to Sergey’s blog.

Now all of you might be thinking what is so special about Sergey’s blog and his updation cycle. Right?

Well, thinking from an SEO standpoint, it is a very interesting topic. Let us consider some stats about his blog:

1. Sergey Brin started blogging from September 2008.

2. So far he has managed to write only 4 posts.

3. The PageRank of his blog is 7. (Dont drop your jaws!)

4. Google shows more than 480 backlinks to his blog.

Now considering all these stats, it is difficult to ascertain how Sergey managed to get such a high PR within such a less time. As per Google, which gives lot of importance to content, Sergeys blog does not have it in plenty. Also, there is no presence of comments (probably Sergey is too busy to approve them), which means there is neither freshness of content nor any interaction amongst people. Another important factor is his blog is running on a free blogger account, i.e. he does not qualify for the benefits that self hosted blogs win.

Its understandable that Sergey being a popular person will attract lot of eyeballs, which is indicated by the number of inbound links to his blog. But I am still wondering on how he achieved a PR of 7 in merely 9 months. I would love to hear from you if you know the answer, so please comment and share your thoughts.