Yahoo is ready to give up the fight with Google and accept that it's not going to dominate internet search, according to this report in the Seattle Post Intelligencer.
"We don't think it's reasonable to assume we're going to gain a lot of share from Google," Chief Financial Officer Susan Decker said in an interview. "It's not our goal to be No. 1 in Internet search. We would be very happy to maintain our market share."
Yahoo!'s comments underline the difficulties any Internet company faces in trying to challenge Google's dominance of the Web search industry. Google has at least double the market share of Yahoo! and Microsoft Corp. in Internet search, the largest and most profitable segment of online advertising.
But read between the lines here, and Yahoo isn't saying it's pulling out of search, or that it's not a huge priority.
While it's interesting to see that Yahoo has decided that the arms race between the two companies is a waste of energy, but we should remember two things. First of all, Yahoo has never been primarily a search firm - it's a portal, and now a content creator. Secondly, most sane people accept that Google's nailed the current generation of search technology - but Yahoo's long been preparing for the next generation, which I wrote about in depth for Tech in December: Seaching for a fresher taste.
