ads bought by the keyword and placed next to search results or on pages around the web . Google makes a negligible amount of money bundling its online apps for businesses , charging $ 50 a head annually -- but mostly it just gives its online text editor , email and spreadsheet programs away . By contrast , Microsoft sold $ 14.3 billion worth of Microsoft Word and PowerPoint and other business applications over the last nine months , making a profit of $ 9.3 billion . It made a further $ 16 billion in revenue in 2008 through sales of its operating systems , which range from XP installations on netbooks , to Vista , to Windows Mobile to its server software . Google now plans its own range of operating systems , starting with Android , an open-source OS for small devices like smartphones , and Chrome OS , a browser-focused , open-source OS that will run on notebooks and desktops . Clearly top executives at each company look over at the others ' pots of gold and dream of ways to steal them , or at least make it harder for the other guy to make money
-LRB- WIRED -RRB- -- In less than a week , Google announced an operating system to compete with Windows , while Microsoft announced that Office 10 will include free , online versions of its four most popular software programs -- a shot at Google 's suite of web-based office applications . The fight between Microsoft and Google is over who 'll be seen as the world 's most important tech company . And not more than a month and a half ago , Microsoft unveiled its new search engine Bing , which it hopes will steal market share from Google and finally make it real money online . From the news of it , it 's a full-blown tech battle , complete with behind-the-scenes machinations to sic government regulators on each other . It is , however , not a death match -- it 's more of an fight to see who will be the King of Technology , since both companies pull in their billions through completely different siphons and are unlikely to severely wound one another any time soon . Google pulled in $ 22 billion in revenue in 2008 , 97 percent of which came tiny text