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Amazon joins the search engine war with project `A9'

Amazon Inc is invading Google's turf with a new online search engine company that hopes to pluck some of the profits flowing into the rapidly growing sector.

Seattle-based Amazon has dubbed its search startup "A9" and set up offices in Palo Alto, California, not far from Google's Mountain View headquarters. A9 hopes to launch in October with 30 employees and grow much larger as it develops a search engine that will be licensed to other Web sites, said spokeswoman Alison Diboll.

"This is part of Amazon's ongoing evolution from an online bookstore to a technology services company," Diboll said.

Unlike Google, A9 isn't trying to develop an all-purpose search engine that indexes billions of Web pages. The startup instead is zeroing on a one of search engines' sweet spots -- e-commerce.

As more consumers have become comfortable with the Internet, a growing number are using search engines to review products and compare prices. The research frequently results in online sales, prompting more advertisers to pay for prominent listings in the commercial sections of Google and other search engines.

Privately-held Google won't provide details about its finances, but the company is believed to be profitable, with revenues this year expected to range from US$700 million to US$1 billion.

Emboldened by its success, Google said Thursday it is opening its 21st office, in Madrid.

Also Thursday, Google also provided the latest evidence of its search engine's moneymaking power with a disclosure that 150,000 advertisers have paid to be included in its paid listings program.

Overture Services Inc boasted 95,000 advertisers in its last quarterly update provide in July.
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