“We have our search tool Bing. It is fun competing with Google,” said Bill Gates, chairman, Microsoft Corporation. Competition between the two IT giants goes back a long way.

Google had recently launched its web browser Chrome in competition to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. To compete with the Windows Mobile operating system on cell-phones, Google had launched the Android operating system.

Gates, speaking on the fifth anniversary of Microsoft Research India, talked about immigration. “There should not be any restriction in the flow of ideas,” he said. This comes in the wake of the US Government talking about protection – tougher visa rules amongst other things. Microsoft Research India was inaugurated in 2005, with headquarters in Bangalore. The company has around 800 research centers across the globe, he added.

Microsoft Research India will conduct a long-term research in both basic and applied areas in collaboration with both Indian research institutions and universities as a part of Microsoft’s ongoing commitment to accelerating innovation in computer science and software engineering. “Computers are for everyone. We should create computers that understand spoken language,” Gates concluded.