Google co-founder Larry Page will take over as CEO from Eric Schmidt, a surprise move aimed at streamlining decision making and creating clearer lines of responsibility and accountability at the top of the company.

Google announced that starting from April 4, Larry Page, Google Co-Founder, will take charge of Google's day-to-day operations as Chief Executive Officer.

Sergey Brin, Google Co-Founder, will devote his energy to strategic projects, in particular working on new products.

Eric Schmidt will assume the role of Executive Chairman, focusing externally on deals, partnerships, customers and broader business relationships. Internally, he will continue to act as an advisor to Larry and Sergey, the company said.

Commenting on these changes, Eric said: "We've been talking about how best to simplify our management structure and speed up decision making for a long time. By clarifying our individual roles we'll create clearer responsibility and accountability at the top of the company. In my clear opinion, Larry is ready to lead and I'm excited about working with both him and Sergey for a long time to come."

Larry said: "Eric has clearly done an outstanding job leading Google for the last decade. The results speak for themselves. There is no other CEO in the world that could have kept such headstrong founders so deeply involved and still run the business so brilliantly. Eric is a tremendous leader and I have learned innumerable lessons from him. His advice and efforts will be invaluable to me as I start in this new role. Google still has such incredible opportunity--we are only at the beginning and I can't wait to get started."

"We are confident that this focus will serve Google and our users well in the future, Eric Schmidt wrote at the company's blog. "Larry, Sergey and I have worked exceptionally closely together for over a decade?and we anticipate working together for a long time to come. As friends, co-workers and computer scientists we have a lot in common, most important of all a profound belief in the potential for technology to make the world a better place. We love Google?our people, our products and most of all the opportunity we have to improve the lives of millions of people around the world."

Google is recruiting in an effort to ensure its online products remain popular as surfers turn to new services like Facebook.

Google is also facing increasing regulatory scrutiny as its influence on the Web grows and as the company expands into other markets.

The company's planned $700 million acquisition of airline ticketing software company ITA software is being reviewed by U.S. regulators, while European regulators are looking into Google's search practices.

News of the change came as Google reported a 29 percent surge in both net profit and net revenue that beat forecasts. Net income, excluding items, of $8.75 a share outstripped Wall Street's average forecast. Net revenue, excluding fees paid to partner websites, was $6.37 billion.