“Over the past three decades, a few titanic rivalries have defined the technology industry’s megatrends, ultimately determining which products eventually end up in consumers’ and companies’ hands,” Peter Burrows reports for BusinessWeek.
“Now, adding to the annals of competition that include Microsoft’s clashes with Apple in the ’80s, IBM in the ’90s, and Google in this decade, the new defining rivalry in tech may be between Google and Apple. Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s resignation from Apple’s board on Aug. 3 highlights the degree to which these companies are more foe than friend,” Burrows reports.
MacDailyNews Note: For some perspective, Apple’s current market cap ($149.09B) plus Google’s ($142.85B) eclipses Microsoft’s market cap ($212.34B) by $79.6B or three times what Dell, for one example, is currently worth ($26.57B).
Burrows continues, “Both companies insist their relationship is fine, and to be sure, there’s collaboration between the two… [but] given the Obama Administration’s signals that it will be more active on the antitrust front than the Bush White House, Schmidt’s removal is a pragmatic step by Apple to stay out of trouble, analysts say.”
“Apple and Google are vying for the upper hand in answering this era’s central technological question: Where should most computing happen? Google’s answer is that most computing tasks should happen in the cloud… Apple’s vision for the future is very different. Its business is about selling elegant, powerful, high-margin machines that put much of the computing power in your pocket (iPhone), in your briefcase (Macbook), or on your desk (iMac),” Burrows reports.
“These days the strongest signals about where the tech sector is heading aren’t emanating from Redmond, Wash. Now the fight is centered on Silicon Valley,” Burrows writes. “With Schmidt’s departure from Apple’s board, a new era of tech rivalry may well begin.”
Full article here.
I don’t see it that way. I think the truth is that Microsoft vs. Google rivalry is the main show.
Google Apps is a direct assault on Microsoft Office, and the pitch is toward large businesses, a core constituency of Microsoft, not Apple.
If anything, many components of the Google strategy work for Apple, because businesses can now choose any computer and any OS for core business functionality, while being free to optimize their choice of hardware and OS software for their particular needs.
I think the resignation from the Apple board is more for technical compliance issue with federal oversight than it is for any big rivalry between Apple and Google.
Do you trust the “Cloud” with your private information? Does a corporation?
Yeah, I don’t see the Google v. Apple rivalry, at least not yet. They’re just not competing, at least not directly.
Apple is building the “cloud” in North Carolina .
“North Carolina lawmakers push to give Apple massive tax break for $1 billion server farm investment”
http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/21213/
My uni just moved to Google Apps a few weeks ago, so all my uni emails and uni work will be on Google’s servers. I hope my work doesn’t somehow end up on Google search, some how
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J-T
It is a server farm, but nothing has been announced except for iTunes use.
It would be the most productive rivalry in history. (Unless you count McDonalds vs. Dunkin Donuts. Mmmmm…. donut burgers.
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The synergy of great hardware and software will ultimately prevail.
Apple has proven this time and time again.
Google’s entrance is similiar to WinMo. Wintel machines have been marginalized to commodity status and not a first choice for consumers. Same will happen to ChromeOS and WinMo on varying degrees of hardware (all inferior to Apple)
I myself don’t want my mobile activities monitored by google and that information used to advertise me what it thinks I want from advertisers.
On the flip side, competition is good and will just highlight Apple’s superiority.
It seems to me that aside from what this hit piece is hawking, Apple and Google have been staunch allies in the struggle against Microsoft and it’s culture of theft and mediocrity.
Microsoft would certainly benefit if Apple and Google started exchanging punches. But now with Microsoft in decline, Apple and Google need to redouble their efforts and keep up a united front.
Sure, they will both offer services that overlap, but that’s not a bad thing. Competition is healthy for all.
Why would this suddenly change to a “war”, which would profit only Microsoft. Why must there only be “ONLY ONE? That “ONLY ONE” mentality gave us Microsoft.
See what THAT gave us. A Pee Sea of Mediocrity.
Competition is good. No more world domination.
I love the smell of competition in the morning.
The Chrome OS is clearly aimed at M$ not Apple. Google have the resources and expertise to put together a UNIX based OS whereas M$ are too dysfunctional to do anything.
Chrome OS will provide a cheap alternative for netbooks etc and will chip away at M$’s share from the bottom. Google don’t need to make money becuase they get their revenue from other means.
Apple on the other hand are working top down. Just like the iPod, Apple will eventually enter the cheaper notebook market but only when they have the economics of scale to make money out of it.
Android may impact Apple’s iPhone or be a competitor to Blackberry. Who knows maybe RIM will start using Android.
I think Steve Jobs believes in the web too!
Think about the iPhone, in its original form. The apps should be built as web applications, not native. And even now, with 65,000 native apps in the App Store. Apple still put a strong browser in the iPhone, capable of running web apps from any site…
There are two key areas where the interest of Apple and Google align perfectly. First is the need for open web standards. The second is the profit that Google makes off of all the searches done in Safari using the default search engine and the usefulness of Google Maps on the i{hone. Apple has no interest in entering Google’s key market of search and Google has shown little interest in entering the consumer device market. What is the alternative for Apple in search, Bing? I don’t think so.
“The Cloud” is not precisely a single entity. Multiple “clouds” exist, could exist, on the Internet. Google is offering one. Apple already HAS one, a limited one, for us MobileMe customers. I’ve worked for a company or two that provided partial “clouds” for their workers.
It makes sense to provide a “cloud” for anything you want to remain either secure or available from multiple points. Or both. Sure, you need to be concerned about the interface, not too hard if you don’t go using proprietary software (like MS). What you define as a “cloud” could be as limited as “storage” or as complete as that plus an Office equivalent plus an iLife equivalent (plus a MobileMe? Second Life? WoW?). Or anything in between. The more you include, the harder it is to support.
Trust my work and information to the cloud?? Year, Sure! Just after one company deleted sold merchandise for their customer’s readers? After several free e-mail outfits closed their doors and people lost their address books and e-mail records? After a certain organization sold licenses to view materials and then closed down its validation servers leaving the license holders with nothing? After my bank issued me a new credit card because a merchant let hackers get my account number?
Yea, cloud computing is the future. Sure bet.
Mason has a good point – the Cloud for the iPhone. The iPhone is a decent, if lightweight, computer. It could certainly serve as an interface for more massive applications and files that live (and work) on a server … elsewhere.
RE: Apple vs Google.
They ARE in competition, but more vs MS than vs each other. Still, each marches to its own drummer and there are places where they will bump heads. As long as there is a MS to focus on, I doubt they will make too much of an effort to go after each other’s turf, but the watchdogs need to see that there is no collusion. It’s one thing for Google to target the <$500 market, quite another for the two to agree that they will not step on each other’s toes.
But the reality is, Apple owns the most popular devices that Google must run on (iPhone, Macs, etc.). I don’t understand why people never get this (and please don’t tell me that Google is going to own the hardware side – that’s a laugh). Apple owns the whole widget and they are far and above better than any other software or hardware company in the world. That is why Steve and Bill fought so hard back in the 80’s because the realized what was at stake: you have to use a computer to do the things you want to do. Apple has won that war and Microsoft will be irrelevant within a few more years.
JoshtheiMacGuy:
Check DLMeyer’s post.
DLMeyer nailed it precisely. Cloud does NOT necessarily mean internet. Cloud can be smaller or bigger. Just as Google builds, sells and supports Google Search appliances for anyone who wants to buy them (at work, we use them for our internal search across our own web properties), they can also in the same way build and support the clouds of various sizes. Your organisation can have a “cloud” that will provide hosting to all corporate apps (Google Docs), e-mail (based on G-mail) and everything else Google makes. The cloud would be behind a fortified firewall, so NOTHING would be under control of anyone but yourself (and your corporation).
This is a direct assault on Microsoft’s most important other cash cow (other than Windows, that is).
Wow, what rubbish. He can’t get out of his own way. Are Apple and Google rivals? Or, are they separating to prevent anti-trust collusion charges? In one article they are being accused of both, being too close and being on the opposite sides. Rubbish.
Please don’t overuse the cliché word, synergy. Sorry, it is quite irksome some days.
Anyway, as I keep suggesting, Google is evil. There is no other way to sugarcoat the message. Don’t compare Google with Apple. One is a born leader, the other is just another in the long line of derivatives (albeit a more successful one at that.)
I hate to say it, but Microsoft innovated more than Google, shocking as it may sound to many naive ears.
Seems a lot of these Tech Writers aka Stock Analyst aka Computer …. just what they ‘ell is their focused field of expertise anyway ?
Lot of them sound like should be on ESPN
They gin up the rabble like we’re coming to the Big Game Tech Bowl™ of Google vs Apple
“Yes, Apple has a strong attack on the ground, but Google’s Cloud Game could give them problems”
“Now, let’s go to the lovely Lauren on the field for an up close look”
If the hype and competition are not naturally there in sufficient quantities for their satisfaction – by gwad they’ll create it.
Heard many of you here mention this before – sounds like FTC/SEC/etc should investigate this so called Tech Press ?
“Now, let’s go out there and invent one for the Gipper”
BC
Microsoft is actively trying to compete with Google in search and Google’s moves into various online services such as gmail, calendar and so on are designed to challenge Microsoft in terms of exchange and office. Apple and Google are as much competitors as Microsoft and Apple are. I mean of course Apple wants to compete with Microsoft in terms of their OS, but since they use their OS to sell hardware it’s of less importance to them what percentage of the OS market they have – as long as it’s big enough to keep their hardware as an option. Google are moving into some areas that Apple are in, but just like with Microsoft (zune being an exception – a failed one), they don’t make the hardware, so something like Android could catch up quite significantly, but Apple would be more concerned with their performance in comparison to individual phone makers.
That’s a simplified description, and perhaps Google could be more of a problem than Microsoft, but I don’t think Apple are as concerned about Google as Microsoft are.
This is blown out of proportion in my opinion. I think Google and Apple are not alike than they are different. They are also joined by a mutual hate for Microsoft. I see these two companies continuing to cooperate to make great products together, yet at the same time each doing their own thing. For Google that means everything internet. For Apple that means all your hardware and software that isn’t in a cloud. I would personally love to see these two come more together in a focused effort to bring microsoft down. With Google and the cloud, and all of the great Apple hardware and software, they could not be stopped. Imagine all of these great working and high-power devices, all able to act independantly yet seamlessly connect in the cloud. (Yes I know about MobileMe, but I am thinking of something further, that doesn’t involve yearly subscriptions).
Edit: MORE alike than they are different, sorry