Bill Gates, the world’s richest man, yesterday went to war with Google, the most powerful company on the web, over the future of the internet.

Microsoft, the software empire founded by Mr Gates, launched a $44 billion (£22 billion) assault on the search engine with a hostile bid for Yahoo!, Google’s rival, the largest hostile takeover offer seen on Wall Street.

Mr Gates has watched for several years in which Microsoft’s dominance of technology has been superceded by the rise of Google. He made his move after 18 months of fruitless behind-the-scenes talks with Yahoo!

At stake is an estimated £40 billion of online advertising by 2010 – double today’s figure – in what is a last-ditch attempt by Mr Gates to stop Google’s runaway success.

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Eager to retain his young Turk credentials, Jerry Yang, the Yahoo! chief executive, is said actively to dislike Microsoft products, and to go out of his way to avoid using them

Rhys Blakely

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The move underlies Mr Gates’s determination to succeed after repeated overtures to Yahoo! were rebuffed.

Steve Ballmer, chief executive of Microsoft, said: “A year ago the Yahoo! management team told us it wasn’t really the right time to discuss an acquisition. We believed then in the benefits of combining the two companies and we believe now in those benefits more than ever.”

Google-owned sites last year became the most visited on the internet, with 587 million people logging in during December. Microsoft, ahead a year ago, was visited by 540 million unique users and Yahoo!, in third place globally, by 485 million.

Internet advertising is soaring: Microsoft said it would double from $40 billion now to be worth $80 billion in 2010.

Although Mr Gates’s company has long dominated the supply of software for personal computers, it has been unable to translate that into commercial success on the internet. Microsoft admitted yesterday that its own search engine and sites lose money, while Google is adept at commercialisation and is now valued at $162 billion.

Yahoo! is reluctant to fall victim. The company is run by Jerry Yang, 39, one of its two founders, whose own shares were yesterday worth $1.6 billion after Mr Gates’s move.

Mr Yang took control of the business last year amid a prolonged crisis in which profits tumbled.

The Californian culture of Yahoo! is radically different to the Seattle-based Microsoft, which is known for its disciplined approach to software development. However, Yahoo! has failed to expand as quickly as Google, and this week was forced to make 1,000 employees redundant.

Mr Gates’s target first learnt of the hostile approach in a phone call on Thursday night to Mr Yang. Yesterday Yahoo! hired Goldman Sachs – a bank that previously advised Microsoft – and Lehman Brothers. Publicly it kept its options open, saying it would “evaluate this proposal carefully and promptly.”

Yahoo! shares soared 46 per cent but at $28.12 remained below Microsoft’s offer, worth $28.99 last night.

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