Associated Press President and Chief Executive Officer Tom Curley remarked at a Foreign Correspondents' Club in Hong Kong that he welcomed a war between Microsoft and Google for dominance of the online search market, Agence France-Presse reported Tuesday.

The AP boss said the battle - sparked by Microsoft's June union with Yahoo! -- represents "a turning point in the traditional media's efforts to adapt to the Internet," according to Editor & Publisher, which also published the story.

The AP and Google had been debating compensation for months when the non-profit news cooperative grudgingly struck a modest accord with the online information aggregator, Forbes reported in April.

In a version of the story appearing through both Yahoo!, and Google, Curley suggested he would prefer Microsoft to come out the victor because it had proven keener than Google in improving the profitability of online news.