Google posts strong Q3 results

Google continues to pile up the money, beating analyst estimates for revenue and earnings for its third quarter, reports CNet.

Third-quarter revenue, excluding the traffic acquisition costs Google pays to its partners, was $5.48 billion, exceeding estimates from analysts polled by Yahoo Finance of $5.25 billion for the quarter.

Overall revenue of $7.29 billion increased by 2%, compared to last year's third quarter, on the back of a 16% jump in paid clicks across Google's network of Web sites.

The video game Medal of Honor has gone on sale despite calls by the UK defence secretary to ban it, says the BBC.

The game follows the exploits of Special Forces troops battling insurgents in Afghanistan in 2002. In August, defence secretary Dr Liam Fox called for the game to be banned after it emerged that users could fight as The Taliban.

Its developer EA said the game was meant to be realistic, but eventually renamed The Taliban “The Opposition”. This edition, the latest in EA's long running series of games bearing the same title, has dispensed with its World War II theme and opted to recreate modern combat in the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan.

Microsoft is trying to convince customers who have fled the company's Office software in favour of an open source alternative to return to the proprietary flock by publicly dissing its rival, states The Register.

The rival in question, as you might expect, isn't Internet kingpin Google. Instead, Redmond has splashed out on an ad that warns against the use of OpenOffice.org.

Ars Technica spotted a video yesterday on Microsoft's 'Office Videos' YouTube channel, which the company has since yanked. However, it's still available via Microsoft.com for those interested in seeing Microsoft defend its product against OpenOffice.org.

Despite the largely negative sentiment surrounding the UK Emergency Budget last June, and in light of the anticipation surrounding the pending Comprehensive Spending Review, general confidence among IT vendors and buyers remains relatively buoyant, with spending on research and development increasing, says Computing.

Social networking is also seeing increased interest, unlike green IT, where vendors in particular seem disillusioned. This is according to a survey conducted by Computing and IT business advisor Cobalt Corporate Finance.

This is the sixth survey in the series, where the publication put the same questions to 80 IT vendors and 222 IT managers (Computing readers) and compared the results with previous quarters.