Good point. Schmidt mentioned that competitors have similar features, but I didn't connect the idea that they're all doing very similar things, which they proba

Good point. Schmidt mentioned that competitors have similar features, but I didn't connect the idea that they're all doing very similar things, which they probably are, with the idea that those features are part of any complete search product. You could imagine Bing implementing a preference which will automatically swap in Google's Maps, News, etc. in place of home-grown versions whenever you search on Bing. If such a preference is feasible (leads to an okay user experience), it would help make the case that these ancillary features are in fact separable from basic search, and that Google ought to do the same. My guess is Google wouldn't mind that terribly.