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Report: Dell PCs to Come Bundled with Google Software

It's a move that marks an aggressive advance on Microsoft territory: Google, the world's biggest search engine, and Dell, the No. 1 maker of PCs, have reached a series of deals to bundle Google software with Dell's computers. Google CEO Eric Schmidt announced the big news at a Goldman Sachs conference in Las Vegas yesterday. The deal says that Dell PCs will now come pre-loaded with Google's toolbar for Web and PC search, along with a co-branded home page. For the time being, the default Web browser will remain Microsoft's Internet Explorer, but this would have been even bigger news if Dell agreed to bundle its PCs with Google partner Mozilla's Firefox Web browser. That said, the gloves are definitely off now, as Google goes after Microsoft's longtime dominance of the desktop. Microsoft, for its part, has placed MSN Search boxes on the start menu, the Web browser, as well as its file organizing program in the new iteration of Windows, as it aims to dethrone Google at the top of the search pile. All this underscores how central search ad revenues are to the companies' future growth. An NPD analyst contends the deal will do little for Google. He told CNET: "I doubt that they will collect many incremental eyeballs beyond the ones they have now."

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