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Bill Gates says Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) will chase the search business whether it buys Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) or not. He says that the company's mighty tech arsenal will allow it to improve the efficiency of its search results and that it can take a larger share of the market based on that alone.
"We can afford to make big investments in the engineering and marketing that needs to get done. We will do that with or without Yahoo," said Gates in an interview with Reuters. For a very smart man, Gates sounds dumb.
Microsoft currently has about 11% of the search market in the US. Its global piece is even smaller. Not only does Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) have a much larger share, it is also improving its technology as quickly, if not more quickly, than Redmond.
Gates may have been asked to make his comments to signal to Yahoo! that it will not raise its offer. It only needs the search portal so much. It can reach its goal on its own.
But behind closed doors, Gates knows better.
Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 24wallst.com
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