Schmidt pulls a Ballmer

By Marc Fenigstein - March 4, 2009

The web is all atwitter today with news of Eric Schmidt's dismissive response at yesterday's Morgan Stanley Technology Conference here in San Francisco to a question from Eminence Capital analyst, Josef Jung, of whether Google sees Twitter's real-time search as a threat. An explosion of schadenfreude-laden articles and a furiously defiant pile of tweets have already responded to Mr. Schmidt's comments that demonstrated a clear lack of understanding of both the present value AND tremendous future potential of the twitter platform. The contrarians at Motley Fool are holding out hope that it was a strategic maneuver pointing to a planned acquisition. But no matter whether a monumental miscalculation or shrewd strategy, the move is a classic page from Ballmer's book of wins and losses, and signals Google's metamorphosis from David to Goliath.

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