Google is the leading search engine of the web and now even Microsoft is feeling the heat of Google's increasing popularity. Bill Gates gave only 100 days to his engineers for marching ahead of Google in internet search technology. But seems like the efforts of Microsoft engineers have not been that fruitful. comScore Media Metrix says that in December 2006 about 117 million unique audience visited  the U.S. websites of  Microsoft. On the other hand, Google has seen an increase of 21% with 113 million unique visitors. On the page views front also there is a surge of  90 percent page views for Google with 13 billion while the number has gone down for Microsoft with 18 billion in December, which shows a downfall of 12%. 

Microsoft's share of U.S. searches two years ago was 14%. But in November it decreased to 8%. On the online sales front too Google's revenue have shot up by 70% to $2.69 billion while Microsoft's sales for the online business unit saw a decline of 5% in a year with $539 million. However, it seems that these figures have not shaken up Microsoft officials. Kamal Jain of Microsoft says: 

You should compare us on technical merit. In certain areas we have zoomed passed our competitors and in certain areas we have close the gap considerably. Overall we have raised the competition so much that the consumers are getting a way better value than they were getting a year ago.

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