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Prediction: Google and Apple go to War.

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Re: Prediction: Google and Apple go to War.

#2
No more than Toyota and BMW are at war.

Regardless of how good Google's products get, their core business doesn't involve building the products that Apple is building. And even if beige box PCs came with an operating system and applications that better compared to a Mac, they'll still lack that integrated quality-assured ecosystem joining them together.

E.g. For the average user, a web-app-focused OS is going to have even more confusing UI inconsistencies than Windows.

Re: Prediction: Google and Apple go to War.

#4
I really can't take such articles seriously anymore because they very simplistically confuse companies with tribes and competition with war...

Microsoft, Google, and Apple have figured out ways to make money in different ways. Whatever Google has to offer, it is going to help Apple and Microsoft further delineate what they do best. I hardly see this as "going to war".

Re: Prediction: Google and Apple go to War.

#6
This is my second-favorite rumor ever, because it keeps coming up (Android vs iPhone, Gmail vs MobileMe, AppleSecretSearch vs Google Search) and because the origin of it is: There are two supercool companies, and people would rather see supercool things duke it out violently than have a quiet amicability wherein the CEO of Google is on the Apple board. Fact is, Google and Apple excel at two different things. Google can't release any product at Apple's price point because they can't achieve such an anal level of quality, Marissa Mayer's 30 shades of blue be damned. Apple can't compete directly with Google because they insist on making pricey products that cost money, and because making a free suite of things completely contradicts their philosophy.

My favorite rumor is the Apple vs Nintendo rumor, because first off it makes more sense (iPod touch vs DS), and second off because both companies make excellent products but design them from different points of view, Nintendo focusing on innovative gaming and Apple focusing on its outright perfectionism. The one that would be my favorite rumor but is absolutely true is Google vs Facebook, and that's the one that interests me most if Google's making its own OS. Facebook acquired Parakey a few years ago, and since then rumors of it launching a webOS have been scattered about. Interesting to see how they take advantage of this announcement.

Re: Prediction: Google and Apple go to War.

#7
post #2

No more than Toyota and BMW are at war. Regardless of how good Google's products get, their core business doesn't involve building the products that Apple is building. And even if beige box PCs came with an operating system and applications that better compared to a Mac, they'll still lack that integrated quality-assured ecosystem joining them together. E.g. For the average user, a web-app-focused OS is going to have…

For a war to exist you have to have a frontier.

The 'google' territory centers around eyeballs, ads and possibly at some point in the future paid services (though it looks like google wants to avoid that).

The 'apple' territory is a unified media presentation vision centered around slick hardware and a common user interface design.

The 'microsoft' territory is mostly (xbox) centered around licensing software.

All three companies have a completely different take on how to make money of their IT business. Sure there are overlaps, and for sure there will be users crossing over from the one service to the other.

But if this were a 'real' war google would be selling hardware (or worse, giving it away), Apple would be getting in to the search business and microsoft would be going for the eyeballs at the expense of their licensing strategy.

Some of this is happening, but at least for the foreseeable time things are relatively stable and market shares will slowly fluctuate, no 'mass casualties' are expected.

For an idea of what happens when there is a war check out what happened to digital research, netscape and altavista. Skirmishes, yes, sure. War ? Definitely not.

Re: Prediction: Google and Apple go to War.

#10
post #2

No more than Toyota and BMW are at war. Regardless of how good Google's products get, their core business doesn't involve building the products that Apple is building. And even if beige box PCs came with an operating system and applications that better compared to a Mac, they'll still lack that integrated quality-assured ecosystem joining them together. E.g. For the average user, a web-app-focused OS is going to have…

Precisely. Will the Google OS be the best at video editing, so that when I plug my camcorder, I can edit video footage of my kids intuitively? Manage my photo album?

Apple has shown their strenght in combining great apps with tailored hardware so that simple "multimedia" tasks just work.

Anything can be replicated, but so far, I haven't see Google go after the same target at all.

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