Google chairman Eric Schmidt wrote in a recent letter to the US Senate anti-trust subcommittee that Apple’s Siri personal assistant is a “significant development,” reports TheNextWeb, and could pose a threat to his company’s core offering of search. Making special notice of Siri, Schmidt wrote: “Even in the few weeks since the hearing, Apple has launched an entirely new approach to search technology with Siri, its voice-activated search and task-completion service built into the iPhone 4S.”
Schmidt’s comment could be taken with a grain of salt as his aim would be to downplay Google’s dominance in search, while highlighting competitors. Schmidt takes care to note Siri as a service that might take search share away from Google.
Even in the few weeks since the hearing, Apple has launched an entirely new approach to search technology with Siri, its voice-activated search and task-completion service built into the iPhone 4S.
In the letter, Schmidt made sure to note news stories that call Siri a “Google killer” and “Apple’s entry point” into the search engine industry. He also backed off from a September 2010 statement that denied that Apple and Facebook were competitive threats. “My statement was clearly wrong,” he said. “Apple’s Siri is a significant development, a voice-activated means of accessing answers through iPhones that demonstrates the innovations in search.”
Schmidt did his best to downplay Google’s own dominance. Claiming it was a matter of hard work and luck. After some senators stated that Google was approaching monopoly status, he replied, “I would disagree that Google is dominant. By investing smartly, hiring extremely talented engineers, and working very, very hard (and with some good luck), Google has been blessed with a great deal of success.”
Senators maintain that figures showing Google as having 65% of all U.S. internet searches, 94% of European inquiries, and 97% of all smartphone related searched, show that Google’s power is reaching that of a monopoly.
“Siri, define Google”.
“Google: A dominant search engine provider who is hearing my melodious voice right behind them.”
