Ask.com surrenders to Google, quits search business
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Giving up on trying to compete with Google, Ask.com is getting out of the search engine business. According to company executives as told to Bloomberg, it is ceasing around 130 engineers and will focus on providing a topnotch question-and-answer service, reports John P. Mello Jr. of PCWorld.
The company which was bought by Barry Diller for $1.85 billion five years ago, says it will still offer a search option, but the search technology will be outsourced to a yet to be named third-partly.According to Ask.com President Doug Leeds, while extremely hard, the decision has been made for a number of reasons which are expected to ultimately benefit the company and its products. The site currently has a two percent share of the U.S. online search market. By contrast, the market leader Google has a 65 percent share.
Leeds told to Bloomberg that Google became too much for Ask to compete with. The company tried its best to hold its market share but it didn’t match IAC’s expectations, he added. Ask.com, which is owned by IAC, is cutting back its total workforce of about 130 people by letting go of employees in Edison, New Jersey and Hangzhou, China. However, 20 of the Garden State workers are being asked to relocate to Oakland, California, where the search unit’s headquarters is located.
**Source:**
[http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/04/100421111353.html](http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/04/100421111353.html)