Google CEO on Microsoft

Google CEO Eric Schmidt made a pair of public appearances in Seattle yesterday, speaking at a Technology Alliance luncheon and later addressing a packed auditorium of University of Washington computer science students. As explained in our story this morning, he was asked at both events for his views on Google's competition, and he identified Yahoo as the primary competitor in the search business. He also mentioned Microsoft, but in a way that cast the company as more of a secondary competitor.

Maybe it was the big Microsoft sign behind him, or the two tables full of Microsoft people in front of him, but Schmidt seemed to be more careful with his words about the Redmond company during the Technology Alliance event -- saying that Microsoft is "just getting going" in the search business.

At the UW event, he was slightly more blunt, saying that Microsoft is "not a significant competitor yet" in the search business.

But it's not as if Google is ignoring the existence of Microsoft's MSN Search. During his UW speech, Schmidt showed a series of slides of mock magazine covers, including one that imagined what it would have been like if Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin had gone to work for Microsoft. The cover envisioned that the two had become the saviors of MSN Search. Schmidt feigned lament and quickly moved to the next slide.