[ti:Microsoft, Google Take Aim at Each Other]
[by:51VOA.COM]
[00:00.00]This is the VOA Special English 
[00:03.21]Economics Report.
[00:04.95]Google, the Internet search leader, 
[00:08.18]will now offer a free operating system 
[00:11.48]for personal computers. 
[00:13.84]The company hopes to loosen 
[00:16.08]Microsoft's hold on the market. 
[00:18.94]Microsoft Windows is on more than 
[00:22.49]ninety percent of PCs.
[00:25.22]Google is basing the new product 
[00:29.50]on its Chrome Web browser 
[00:32.12]and the Linux open-source 
[00:34.23]operating system. 
[00:35.97]The Google Chrome OS is expected 
[00:39.77]to be available 
[00:40.95]in the second half of next year.
[00:43.13]At first, 
[00:45.12]it will be aimed at netbooks.
[00:47.29]These are smaller, 
[00:48.97]simpler machines designed mainly 
[00:51.96]for Internet use.
[00:54.14]Google's chief executive, 
[00:56.44]Eric Schmidt, says Chrome will 
[00:59.05]pay for itself. 
[01:00.67]It will do that,he says, 
[01:03.19]by reducing the cost of computers 
[01:05.92]and increasing the number of people 
[01:09.03]who search the Internet. 
[01:11.34]Google earns most of its money 
[01:14.07]from sales of advertising 
[01:16.44]on its search engine.
[01:18.43]But the recession has hurt 
[01:21.10]the advertising market. 
[01:23.03]And now Microsoft has targeted 
[01:26.08]Google's main business. 
[01:28.50]Microsoft says 
[01:29.75]its new Bing search engine 
[01:33.11]offers a better way 
[01:34.60]to search the Internet. 
[01:36.78]Ads for it make fun of 
[01:39.01]how Web searches often give people 
[01:41.88]a lot of useless results.
[01:44.55]COMMERCIAL: "Find a cure 
[01:45.42]at bing.com. 
[01:46.54]It's not just a search engine. 
[01:48.03]It's the first-ever decision engine. 
[01:49.53]From Microsoft."
[01:51.08]A Web traffic report last Friday 
[01:53.39]from StatCounter said Bing twice 
[01:56.81]passed Yahoo in usage 
[01:59.05]in the United States 
[02:00.85]in its first few weeks. 
[02:03.77]Yahoo is the second biggest 
[02:05.92]search engine.
[02:07.16]But no one has the answer 
[02:09.47]to how much market share Bing 
[02:12.20]will claim from Yahoo or Google 
[02:15.25]in the long term. 
[02:16.68]Microsoft, 
[02:18.18]in its struggle against Google, 
[02:20.23]tried unsuccessfully last year 
[02:23.03]to buy Yahoo for more than 
[02:25.95]forty billion dollars.
[02:28.06]Google and Microsoft are also 
[02:31.42]competing in business software. 
[02:34.28]Google offers Google Docs. 
[02:37.71]These applications are free 
[02:39.88]and on the Web. 
[02:41.44]They compete with Microsoft Office, 
[02:44.11]a hugely popular product. 
[02:47.66]Next year, 
[02:48.97]Microsoft plans 
[02:50.46]a new version of Office 
[02:52.39]that is both Web-based and free.
[02:56.37]Also, Microsoft plans 
[02:59.17]to launch its seventh version of 
[03:01.59]Windows this October. 
[03:03.83]And the company is preparing 
[03:06.01]to open its own stores, 
[03:08.44]like its competitor Apple. 
[03:11.11]In fact, 
[03:12.17]some Microsoft stores 
[03:14.03]could open right 
[03:15.40]next to Apple stores 
[03:17.39]in the coming months.
[03:19.45]The recession has cut sales of 
[03:22.81]PCs and software. 
[03:25.42]But there may be hopeful signs 
[03:28.09]for the industry. 
[03:29.71]Intel is the leading maker of 
[03:33.01]computer processors. 
[03:35.18]This week Intel reported that 
[03:37.92]its results 
[03:38.79]for the past three months 
[03:40.72]were better than expected. 
[03:43.21]And it predicted more good news 
[03:45.82]in the current quarter.
[03:48.06]And that's the VOA Special English 
[03:51.17]Economics Report, 
[03:52.85]written by Mario Ritter. 
[03:54.65]I'm Steve Ember.