“Apple Computer has warmed up a seat on its board of directors for Google CEO Eric Schmidt,” Rick Aristotle Munarriz reports for The Motley Fool.
“A centered market-watcher wouldn’t read too much into the move. Me? I’m rarely centered. My initial reaction is that this is just one more way for Google to draw a thicker battle line against Microsoft,” Munarriz writes.
“Microsoft and Apple have been fierce competitors for ages. Microsoft’s move to introduce the Zune portable music player — a clear stab at the lucrative iPod market — is just the latest lunge,” Munarriz writes.
Munarriz writes, “Schmidt may not make Apple better in the boardroom, but his presence is likely to make Google’s relationship with Apple better. Even though some of Google’s smaller-scale endeavors, like pushing for budget-priced open-source PCs and digital music, may clash with Apple, the Mac maker is on the backburner of a very crowded Google stove, and it needs all the friends it can get.”
Munarriz writes, “So, sure, you may not want to read too much into Schmidt landing on Apple’s board. A quality company’s proven leader now has a seat in the boardroom at another proven quality company. It works even without the backstory. Go with that if you must. I’ll stick to my theory that it’s all about making Mr. Softy jealous. It’s just more fun that way.”
Full article here.
Related articles:
Google CEO to help shape Apple’s future – August 30, 2006
Google CEO Dr. Eric Schmidt joins Apple’s Board of Directors – August 29, 2006
Microsoft Zune is chunky brick made by Toshiba – August 25, 2006
Isn’t the president of Intuit on Apple’s board? It doesn’t seem to help them get a Universal Binary version of Quicken out the door any time soon.
Right…pay no mind to the Board of Directors…they only set the direction of the company…unless you are MSFT who apparently just lets Monkey Boy dance the company which ever way he pleases.
http://www.apple.com/pr/bios/bod.html
Apple’s BOD include:
Fred D. Anderson
Partner, Elevation Partners
Former CFO, Apple Computer, Inc.
Bill Campbell
Chairman and former CEO
Intuit Corp.
Millard Drexler
Chairman and CEO
J. Crew
Albert Gore Jr.
Former Vice President of the United States
Steve Jobs
CEO, Apple
Arthur D. Levinson, Ph. D.
Chairman and CEO
Genentech
Dr. Eric Schmidt
CEO
Google
Jerry York
Chairman, President and CEO
Harwinton Capital
I think the story is about the opportunity for communication between the two most interesting players in Slicone Vally and the possibilities for creative innovations which may come of it.
I do think it should be of import to Microsoft. Especially as creativity is not their forte.
Mr. Softy?
hilarious
Micropenis is my personal Mafia$oft put-down. Somewhat related to Mr. Softy, don’t ya know!
Maybe Google will be releasing some software as part of the OS X Installer that Windows will not get. I would love to see that.
Psychological is one aspect of warfare that most overlook.
Nobody is more insecure, hence more paranoid, than Bill Gates. He refuses to let go of legacy code, in fear of losing Windows’ grip on corporate America, when in reality, Microsoft would be forcing them to move into the 21st Century.
His fear of a successful competitor has caused him to ignore anti-trust laws, rather than improve his product.
An apparent, unspoken alliance between Google and Apple has got to be causing Gates and Ballmer to eat Prozac like popcorn. All the while they are doing that, they don’t have their eye on the ball.
Google integrated into Finder, Spotlight, iChat and Time Machine?
Not Bill,
It’s Silicon Valley
The valley you’re thinking of was renamed Hollywood awhile back…
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But I agree, Microsoft is shaking in their boots even more than usual.
Let the one-upping begin! I can see it now…
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Yahoo EO joins M$ BOD
I’m still laughing over the throwing chair animation from a previous related MDN post….
I hate to be the spoil sport in all of this… But it doesn’t exactly mean that Google and the Mac OS are going to be conjoined in anyway. Take the other CEO we all know and love, Steve. He’s CEO of Apple, and on the BoD at Disney. Yet we haven’t seen any Mickey Mouse iPods or Apple land at Disney parks. What we have seen are subtle little things, such as Disney clips and shows on iTMS, and compatibility of Disney games and software with the Mac (not that they already didn’t have that one). Schmidt is going to try and do the same thing, what is best for the respected companies. Put on an Apple hat in the Apple board room, a Google hat in Google’s, and his Princeton hat when he has something to do there. The last thing he would want to do would be to alienate Google to one platform, just as Apple has done away with with Boot Camp. I think this is going to be interesting though in the future battle against MicropenissoftyBallmerMonkey. But whatever happens, it will be subtle.
While Schmidt joining Apple’s board may not be direct threat to Microsoft, it does tend to indicate some sort of relationship evolving between Apple & Google. Afterall, Schmidt wouldn’t be put on the board if Google had plans to offer services directly competing against Apple.
So my guess is that this means that whatever Google plans to do with video and music will be complementary to Apple’s iTunes/iPod, which is a good thing. Even if this just means Google stays out of Apple’s way, it means one less competitor for Apple to worry about.
It seems like an odd match to me. Google and Apple have almost nothing in common at all.
Jimbo
Having Mr. Campbell on the board has kept Intuit from completely pulling Quicken and QuickBooks from the Mac. While a UB version of these would be nice we should count our blessings.
I’m confident that Quicken and QB will get better as Apple increases its market share.
A google desktop like thing integrated seamlessly into os 10.6 … oh wait…
Apple BOD Member
Millard Drexler
Chairman and CEO
J. Crew
Were those stupid iPod socks his idea?