Microsoft says it's ready to duke it out with Google, as well as IBM, Oracle and all other comers, in enterprise search - and is confident it will prevail, with new product launches scheduled in the coming months, writes CNET. "Enterprise search is our business, it's our house and Google is not going to take that business," Microsoft COO Kevin Turner is quoted as having told a conference of some 7,000 business partners this week.

Earlier in the week Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said search is one of Microsoft's most important areas of investment: "Search from the desktop to the enterprise to the internet is a business of great importance and a market of great importance to us." He said enterprise search is a $13 billion market, and Microsoft has signed up 35 partners to focus on it.

Microsoft and Google are widely seen as being on a collision course in business software.