• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, December 5, 2008

MediaPost's Search Insider Summit got underway Friday with Gord Hotchkiss, president and CEO at Enquiro Search Solutions asking panelists a bunch of "what if."

Hotchkiss led the panel "The Google Universe location: Renoir Room" that included Danny Sullivan, editor in chief, SearchEngineLand.com, Jeffrey Pruitt, EVP, corporate partnerships at iCrossing, and John Tawadros, COO at iProspect.

An interesting question from Hotchkiss came halfway through the panel: Have we built a habit to use Google?

Sullivan said "Yes but it's a habit that doesn't kill you."

All agreed the search marketing having three big engines creates healthy competition. But what would it look like if Microsoft and Yahoo merged?

Sullivan said Yahoo's uncertain future puts the company in a rocky position. Microsoft has multiple brands they can't execute on. Microsoft unable to clarify its own brands creates a big mess. Google didn't get into it to build an advertising network, but rather because they love search, Sullivan said. Microsoft built search because they wanted to get into the advertising business. Sullivan doesn't feel comfortable that Google has "80%" market share and believes competition is healthy.