Google welcomes Eric Schmidt as CEO

NEWS Search engine firm Google has appointed former Novell boss Eric Schmidt to be its new CEO, replacing Larry Page, Google's founder. Schmidt, 46, has been CEO of Novell for a troubled four years in which revenue has remained relatively static and profits have slumped. He was appointed chairman of Google in April after relinquishing his duties at Novell. Google's existing CEO, 28 year old Larry Page, has been appointed to president of products. Google began life in 1998 and now claims to support over 10 million web searches everyday with annual revenues in excess of $50m.