Adobe becomes 'minions' for Google

Receiving a "relative" amount from Google, Adobe System has become the official distributor of Web search for Google.

Adobe said it has begun offering Google search software to customers using Shockware multimedia software packages.

This information has also been confirmed by the official media application developer on its website. The agreement with Google also replaced the previous similar agreement between Adobe and Yahoo in October 2004.

This agreement, along with a number of other similar agreements to pre-install Google's search software and third-party products, marked a change in the Web search market. This demonstrates that Google is ready to share advertising revenue with its partners to get a larger number of visitors and also to bring more competition to the global web search market.

Under this agreement, users will receive a free version of Google Toolbar Web Search when they download Adobe Shockware for Internet Explorer.

" We are happy to partner with Adobe to bring our latest search features to Adobe customers as well as to look for other collaboration opportunities between the two companies ," Google said.

Deal with Microsoft .

Google is currently launching a race to win deals with computer and software manufacturers to ensure the easiest access to its search software before Windows Vista launches.

Microsoft is expected to make its MSN search system the default search engine in Vista. Google has no footprint in Vista. This threatens to dominate Google's search market. And this prompted Google to push Yahoo to gain the right to cooperate with Adobe.

" Adobe's popularity and ease of access to technology gives Google the ability to reach a large number of customers ," Adobe executive chairman Shantanu Narayen said in a statement.

Shockwave application is used in about 55% of computer systems that use the Internet, Adobe said. " We hope the cooperation with Google will bring more revenue for Adobe in the coming years ," Narayen said.

The financial terms of this contract were not disclosed.

Last month, Google also reached an agreement with Dell's leading computer maker to pre-install Google's search engine on Dell's product systems.

Still the leader

Market share in Google's search market last month increased by 1% to 44.1% and increased by 6.6% over the same period last year. Meanwhile, Yahoo only got 27.9% market share and Microsoft was 12.9%.

Hoang Dung