Schmidt's job search ends at Google

Former Novell chief executive Eric Schmidt is to hold the same role again, but this time at the highly-rated search engine company Google.

The decision by Schmidt to take the chief executive role has immediately led to speculation that Google could be the first internet company for some time to test the IPO environment.

The company, being private, does not disclose its finances.

Giga analyst Rob Enderle believes Google could be ripe for an IPO next year. But he doesn't think the market is ready for a move this year, "no matter how strong a company's fundamentals are."

Schmidt had been Google's chairman, a role he still holds at the software vendor Novell.

He says he decided to head the company because he's impressed by the technologies being developed at Google.

The company says it processes 70 million search queries daily - half through its own website, the rest through partners like Yahoo.

More than 100 sites license Google's search engine.

Google, which was founded by two graduates from Stanford University, caught the attention of the internet community when it was chosen to replace Inktomi as the Yahoo search engine.