Google: Larry Page returns to the top of the company
Co-founder Larry Page is returning to the helm of Google. The 37-year-old will succeed Eric Schmidt on April 4.
Daily adult supervision is now no longer necessary, the 55-year-old Schmidt tweeted shortly after Google dropped the bombshell. Schmidt took the helm ten years ago because Google investors demanded a more experienced manager. But now the apprenticeship years are over. Page, who had previously steered the company for three years, is back at the helm. His partner Sergey Brin, meanwhile, is to take care of new products. Page and Brin, former university colleagues, founded Google in 1998.
In 2001, the two handed over the reins of the company to Schmidt, who had previously been head of software provider Novell. Under his leadership, Google has grown from an up-and-coming Internet search company into a broad-based technology group. As Chairman of the Board of Directors, Schmidt will primarily represent the company externally in the future. The roles are now more clearly defined, Schmidt said at a media conference in Mountain View, California, according to SDA. The previous way of making decisions jointly had become too complicated in view of the size of the company.
Annual profit of $8.5 billion
Google continues to earn most of its money from online advertising, especially from the preferential placement of links to advertisers on the hit lists of an Internet search. The company is also well positioned in the mobile Internet business - where Google launched the Android cell phone operating system. In the final quarter, sales rose by 26 percent to 8.4 billion dollars, Google further announced. The company earned 2.5 billion dollars on the bottom line, 29 percent more than in the same period last year. Google thus clearly exceeded analysts' expectations. The annual profit for 2010 reached 8.5 billion dollars.
