Amazon to take Google on?

Hype-filled article on CNN discusses Amazon's spinoff Search Engine company A9, and suggests that this new product will be a competitor to Google.  It is not immediately clear how this is possible:

Google has spent years developing its PageRank technology that they call the "heart of our software". Given that Google has patented PageRank [google.com], it is hard to imagine how Amazon will be able to produce anything that will be of a competitive nature to Google.

Froogle hasn't been officially released (notice the little "Beta" in the corner of the logo), but I think that it will be a far more comprehensive online shopping service than anything that Amazon could create.  The nature of Froogle is to get the customer the best price, whereas the nature of any Amazon service will be to get Amazon the best price or commission.

It seems likely to me that Google could use its place in the "Search Engine" market to expand into the "Search Engine for Specific Products/Services" market. It seems highly unlikely that Amazon will be able to use its place as an Online Retailer to springboard themselves into the search engine market.

This is my second blog posting ever (!)... I hope I'm not embarressing myself with the poor quality of my spelling, expression, and ideas!  This eText software rocks, by the way.