Exclusive Interview With Google's Eric Schmidt

Bartiromo: Let's talk about DoubleClick. You acquired the company. How's
the integration going?

Schmidt: Well, it just started. It started about three weeks ago. And
what we're doing is we're taking their products and our products and
integrating them so that people have better tools, advertisers have more,
literally, ads, and publishers have more spots that they can publish
information into. So it's the combination of all that that we've been waiting
for so long, and it's under way. It takes six months to get all the products
together.

Bartiromo: So you think that the integration process will take about six
months?

Schmidt: It's on the order of that. And, of course, at Google ,
everything is a try. We try this, we try that, we see what works. The early
indications are that we'll be largely complete within that period.

Bartiromo: It's no secret that Google owns search, but what about the display
ads? Is it--is it fair to say that's sort of up for grabs? You know, you've
got DoubleClick, Microsoft has aQuantis. It's up for--up for grabs, that part of the business.

Schmidt: Well, it's fair to say that that Google is not the leader in
display ads, but our customers want to be able to purchase text ads and
display ads and other advertising in one purchasing bundle, and the
combination of the tools that we're developing, plus the DoubleClick
integration acquisition and so forth, allows us to offer a single product for
those advertisers. So we think that will help us with our display ads
competitiveness. We think our technology is better. And so really now it's a
question of earning those customers' respect and knowledge.

Bartiromo: So how do you ensure that that was actually the right acquisition
and not just go it alone, do it on your own?

Schmidt: Well, we had tried that. But the customers really liked the
DoubleClick product, and in our surveys we concluded that in one of
these--this was one of those cases where another company had simply built a
better product, which is why we went forward with the acquisition.

Bartiromo: Tell me what you're doing with Yahoo! in terms of testing. On
the earnings call last time, you said you're setting up ads there. How's it
going? What's involved?

Schmidt: Well, the long and short of it is that we did a test for about
two weeks, which has since ended, where Yahoo! took a small percentage of
their ads and replaced them by ours. We did this as part of a commercial
conversation, which I obviously cannot go into, but it's one of the strategic
options that we believe Yahoo! is considering at this time.

Bartiromo: Now, of course, after that, I guess the Department of Justice
announces that it's, you know, doing an inquiry about this. Have you heard
from the Department of Justice on this?

Schmidt: Well, again, without going into the specifics, you should
expect that in all of these possible transactions, all of the regulatory
bodies will be reviewing them. If there were an acquisition of Yahoo!, for
example, the Department of Justice would also be doing a review. And the
anti-trust laws allow the government--and I think properly so--to look at both
commercial deals as well as acquisitions.

Bartiromo: What kind of a combination would you like to see with Yahoo!?
What kind of a partnership would you like to see?

Schmidt: Oh, well, we actually enjoyed working with Yahoo!. We also
compete with them. They're a well run and, I think, impressive company.
We've primarily been concerned about the possibility of a Microsoft
acquisition of Yahoo! because of Microsoft's history and because of the
assets that Yahoo! has are quite valuable. And we actually think that in the
wrong hands, they could be used in the wrong way.

Bartiromo: What do you mean, Microsoft's history?

Schmidt: I think people are aware of the anti-trust trial from 10 years
ago. Microsoft has a long history in that area.

Bartiromo: Yeah, you can bet, I guess, who tipped off the DOJ about the phone
call that was made, Steve Ballmer or somebody from that side.

So what do we know about Microsoft and Yahoo!? Tell me this. I mean, I know
that, you know, we're waiting on possible news from Microsoft, possibly, a
hostile--we don't know what's going to happen next. But what kind of a
challenge would Microsoft/Yahoo! be for Google?

Schmidt: Well, today we actually do not know what's going on. We read
in the press that there's discussions and we'll see what they decide to do.
If they go ahead and the merger's ultimately successful, it would be possible
for Microsoft to integrate some of the properties and essentially eliminate
consumer choice, particularly in electronic mail, instant messaging, the
things where they have 80 or 90 percent market share, and that's a sweet spot
for Microsoft in its ability to eliminate choice.

Bartiromo: Mm-hmm. And, of course, Google has been getting all these new
killer apps, whether it's Gmail or Maps or, you know, spreadsheets.
Ultimately is the game to compete direct, head on, with Microsoft?

Schmidt: Well, Google is actually trying to be an innovator, and we're
always concerned about competition. We have found that if we can simply
invent a brand-new product that really solves a problem that really does
matter to you, we can get your business, we can get your attention, we can get
your traffic and your customers or what have you. We're trying in a new thing
called cloud computing to offer very powerful Web services that do the common
things--e-mail, word processing and so forth--where the data's kept in the
cloud, it's kept by somebody else, it's managed by professionals. You don't
need to worry about where you keep all that information. We like that model a
lot. We're getting traction. It is a competitive threat to other companies,
but we think it's a technological breakthrough.

CONTINUED : What If Microsoft Goes Hostile?

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