Schmidt Replaces Page As Google CEOSchmidt Replaces Page As Google CEO

Google Inc., which named Eric Schmidt chairman of its board in March, Monday added the job of CEO to Schmidt's responsibilities.

Schmidt, who was chairman and CEO of Novell Inc. from 1997 until a month ago, takes over the CEO duties at Google from co-founder Larry Page. Page becomes Google's president of products. Google's other co-founder, Sergey Brin, is also switching roles. He had the title of president until Monday when he became president of technology at the search-engine company.

Schmidt will continue in an advisory role at Novell, where he still serves as chairman of the company's board of directors. Schmidt first revealed his intention to relinquish the CEO job at Novell in March, when Novell said it would acquire Cambridge Technology Partners Inc. for $266 million and make Jack Messman, Cambridge's president and CEO, the new president and CEO of Novell. Messman formally replaced Schmidt in early July when the Cambridge acquisition was finalized.

Privately held Google was founded in 1998 based on technology that Page and Brin developed while they were students at Stanford University. Its search technology scours 1.3 billion URLs for users' key-word searches and lists returns ranked by relevance.