Web giant Google has reported a meagre 3% increase in year-on-year revenue for the second quarter of 09 to $5.52 billion, narrowly beating Wall Street estimates but overshadowed by Intel’s strong results earlier this week.

Intel posted 12% sequential growth sparking widespread industry optimism that the recession was drawing to a close.

Google’s results are still an improvement on its first quarter, which saw revenue decline 3% compared to the same period last year. CEO Eric Schmidt was worried: "A quarter ago we had no idea where the bottom was," he said.

While Google is most recognisable as a consumer-oriented company and derives the bulk of its income from advertising, it is increasingly pushing into enterprise territory. In its quarterly report, the company highlighted Google Apps and mobile as areas of key strategic development.

In particular, with the recession driving the adoption of cheaper and more flexible alternatives to conventional licensed software, Google Apps (notably hosted email) has been finding a home in more and more large enterprises including the Guardian and Telegraph media groups.

Google is also increasingly butting heads with Microsoft following the announcement of Google Chrome OS, months after Microsoft relaunched its MSN search service as ‘Bing’. That move has not been as successful as the company likely hoped: Google CFO Patrick Pichette claimed the search giant had not seen any material impact since Bing’s launch.

Like Microsoft however, Google has continued to build a substantial cash pile, which now stands at $19.3 billion.