Google and Microsoft have been engaged in well-documented battles over search and advertising, online productivity applications and other areas as the hype about cloud computing is hitting a fever pitch.

With Google's free voice-recognition application users just have to ask a question and the sound is converted to a digital file and sent to Google to be interpreted and moved onto the Google search engine.

Google executives told the that "location-based queries would make it possible to charge higher rates for advertisements from nearby businesses, for example, although it is not selling such ads now."

On its Tellme 2.0 platform, Microsoft uses GPS capabilities that provide for location-based searching. The voice interface introduced in April for the BlackBerry was an extension to Tellme's year-old mobile platform. The platform includes a range of voice-activated services from finding a business to checking traffic and weather.

The client software portion of the platform initially will support the Blackberry 8800 series phones and Curve devices and Helios Mysto phones.