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"Google is out with its latest earnings report, and, while not demonstrating the type of growth we were used to seeing several years ago, the company is still putting money in the bank at a healthy clip.  \nFor the search giant\u2019s third quarter, they reported $5.7 billion revenue, up 7% from the same time last year.  Moreover, the company generated $2.54 billion in free cash flow during the quarter, bringing the company\u2019s total cash on hand to a staggering $22 billion.The significance of that, of course, is that it gives Google a war chest rivaled only by the likes of Apple and Microsoft to continue to invest in new products and make acquisitions.  The company says as much in its earnings release, stating \u201Cwe expect to continue to make significant capital expenditures.\u201D\nThere are already a number of majorly ambitious Google projects in the early stages requiring vast resources: Google Wave, Google Voice, Google Chrome OS, and Google Caffeine, just to name a few.  With that type of money in the bank, they can certainly to continue investing in them for the long haul.\nMeanwhile, CEO Eric Schmidt offered some positive comments on the overall outlook for Google and the economy, saying \u201CWhile there is a lot of uncertainty about the pace of economic recovery, we believe the worst of the recession is behind us and now feel confident about investing heavily in our future.\u201D\nSo far, Wall Street seems to be reacting positively to the news: shares are up about $11 since the news was released a little after 4pm ET.  \nImage courtesy of iStockphoto, tforgo"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2009/10/15/google-earnings-3/>