Steve Ballmer on Search

Nice article on Bing, the new Microsoft search engine.

"Sometimes the error you make is what you don't do or what you don't start soon enough," he said. "Most of our mistakes came not because we didn't see the technology change that was coming. Ironically, we didn't see the business change that was coming."

"He blames Microsoft's corporate heft, in part. Microsoft had spent richly on research and development. Its R&D budget comes to $9 billion this year alone. And the company had plenty of people working on producing a search engine. But Microsoft had lost its startup brashness. New companies have an edge: They have to succeed big or go bankrupt. That forces them to take risks fast, before it's too late."

"We've got our mojo going now. We're rolling. We're the little engine that could."