Google co-founder Page replacing Schmidt as CEO

In a surprise shakeup of its top management, Google has said that Eric Schmidt, the chief executive over the past decade, will step aside in April for co-founder Larry Page.

Google yesterday said the company's other co-founder, Sergey Brin, who along with Page and Schmidt has led the "triumvirate" at the helm of the Internet search titan, would be responsible for strategic projects and new products.

The management changes, which overshadowed the Mountain View, California-based company's announcement of strong fourth quarter earnings, are due to take effect on April 4.

Schmidt, 55, a former chief executive of Novell, will remain with Google as executive chairman, focusing on deals, partnerships, customers and government outreach, Google said in a statement.

He will also act as an adviser to Page, 37, who served as CEO previously, from 1998 to 2001, and Brin, also 37.

"Day-to-day adult supervision no longer needed!" Schmidt said on Twitter in a reference to when the young co-founders brought him in to run the day-to-day operations of the then-fledgling company.

Google has grown over the past decade from a startup battling other Internet search engines into a technology giant with nearly 25,000 employees and annual revenue of nearly  $30 billion.

The company meanwhile reported its fourth-quarter net profit increased to $2.54 billion from $1.97 billion a year ago, while revenue rose 26 percent to $8.44 billion.

Technology bloggers and analysts were uncertain what exactly to make of the shakeup at the company that dominates the search market but has been coming under pressure from social networking rivals such as Facebook and Twitter.

Danny Sullivan, editor-in-chief of technology blog SearchEngineLand.Com, said Google was "probably overdue for a major management reorganisation."

"The structures between the three have remained exactly the same over the past 10 years -- which might as well be 100 years of Internet time," he said in a blog post.

"It could be that Schmidt wants a break from being the main public face of the company."

Sullivan noted that Schmidt had come in for criticism for awkward recent statements "harmful to Google's reputation" and the three top executives may have decided "it was time for a fresh public face."

John Battelle, author of "The Search," a book about Google and technology rivals, said: "Eric has been at it for a decade, a very long time to be running a company, particularly one that has very headstrong founders in key positions of power."