Despite recent moves in paid search advertising by industry giants Yahoo! and Microsoft, Ask Jeeves Inc. says it's confident it can stay independent and relevant.
In a conference call Monday
morning following the appointment of Scott Berkowitz CEO from president of the Emeryville, Calif.-based Web search firm. Berkowitz said there's been no change in Ask Jeeves' strategy since he
joined the company two and a half years ago. Berkowitz and departing CEO A. George Battle said Ask Jeeves is well positioned in online paid search.
"This is a very robust market and we're
sitting in a position where we have the assets and the strengths to continue to grow in this market," Berkowitz said. He said Ask Jeeves had no plans to create a portal and said its focus would
remain search. Battle, who will stay as executive chairman of Ask Jeeves' board, said the company's strategy has been to focus on enhancing its customers' search experiences and growing the
business.
"We have the ability to be a very successful independent player in the marketplace," Battle said. He didn't shut the door on a merger or acquisition, saying that Ask Jeeves had
been "pretty agnostic" on whether it would be independent or part of a larger company. Such a decision would be "entirely situational," Battle said.
"[There's] no reason to divert from
independent status because our independent status looks pretty good right now," Battle said.
The comments come at a time when more attention is being drawn to the paid search business, which
is one of the hottest things in interactive advertising. Yahoo! recently completed its purchase of online search advertiser Overture. One of Overture's big clients, Microsoft, recently announced
that it would dump its directory search business in favor of its own paid search service.
Berkowitz said Microsoft already had significant market share through MSN and said that competition
would make the market grow faster.