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Redmond Yawning at Apple-Google Alliance?
Debra D'Agostino writes "Despite the media hype around Google CEO Eric Schmidt's appointment to Apple's board, CIO Insight Executive Editor Dan Briody says it's not that big a story. 'Apple and Google are already plenty tight,' he says. Arthur Levinson, CEO of Genentech, has been on both boards for years. And Al Gore and Intuit Chairman Bill Campbell are both Apple board members and advisors to Google. 'While it's fun to speculate about what an Apple-Google alliance could produce (GoogleMacs? MacGoogle? GoogleTunes?) this move is far from an alliance,' Briody writes. 'And even if it were, it wouldn't be first time that two upstart powerhouses have joined forces in an attempt to unseat Microsoft. Remember AOL-Netscape? Boy, they just steamrolled the team from Redmond, didn't they?'"
These are exciting times for Microsoft Haters. Google is growing in strength, serving up online ads by the bucket, even making headway in the corporate software market.
What adult writes like this?
Blogs are the new Op-Ed page, only with no journalistic standards.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
apple is an upstart now?
I think a lot of people bought and listened to MS because they were the biggest and seemed to be leading the way, so you bought their stuff and did things their way because that was the easiest... Now with two giants providing a different path, MS will start to look far weaker and people will feel that they are now entitled to make non-MS decisions.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
If Apple and Google are so tight, where the hell is that Mac-compatible Google Talk voice chat client we were promised a year ago?
Not to mention... well... ALL the rest of Google's software.
I'm not blaming Google specifically, mind you.... Apple should hurry up and fix those Javascript bugs in Safari already so that stuff like Writely will finally work.
What he said about AOL-Netscape may be true, but AOL-Netscape was a lame-ass alliance.
Seriously, I've known Apple fanboys to be zealous to the point of failed logic, but I've never known a mac user to be outright stupid (lookin' at you, AOL).
Meanwhile, Google is ubiquitous and powerful, with a number of good web-apps that are challenging to MS's model. And the pair of them are at the (to date) height of their power with very little overlaping in the finger-to-pie categories.
If there's a plan, I hope it's a good one.
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If Apple and Google are so tight, where the hell is that Mac-compatible Google Talk voice chat client we were promised a year ago?
Likewise, how come Intuit has waffled back and forth over Mac support during Campbell's tenure on Apple's board? How come the presence of Ellison on Apple's board never resulted in any staggering Oracle+Apple ventures?
Boards of directors are supposed provide outside perspective and serve as a safeguard for shareholders. Whether they actually do this in the era of the massively overpaid chief executive is debatable, but it seems obvious that membership on a board doesn't lead to actual strategic connections between the two companies.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
I've never known a mac user to be outright stupid
As a mac user myself, who reads and posts on many mac-centric websites....
You obviously haven't looked very hard. I've seen apple fanbois who would brag about the opportunity to bend over and have steve jobs fuck them in the ass with a baseball bat with the letters "DRM" spelled out in razor blades.
This illustrates the need for a moderation class of +1: Vivid and Disturbing Image.
If we're lucky, we can all see the fiery explosion that will be the downfall of M$.
Where do you guys come from with all this venom and FUD? God, complete with a $. Your type really seem to think so much alike that I'd swear every one of you are the same person. It's so ironic, it's sad.
Anyway, getting to the point: Maybe I agree or disagree but you should provide some reasoning along with a statement.
Let me try: I don't think there is an alliance, and even Google and Apple together are not going to just "crush" Microsoft. MS' sheer size, marketshare along with its diverse involments in many more markets that Google nd Apple combined coupled with its admittedly dubious business practices are going to ensure they'll be around a *long* time.
why run from Vincenzo?
No one is going to be a threat to Microsoft until they challenge Windows as an operating system. Microsoft can always include any product they make into their operating system "for free" (actually subsidized by the cost of Windows), and push them out, like what they've done with all before them.
The key to "beating" Microsoft is the OS. Something that's easy to use, runs on cheap/common hardware, and compatible with current software.
The key to beating Microsoft is to unseat Windows. Having a new board member at Apple isn't going to do that.
If Apple was serious about unseating Windows then they would copy Microsoft's strategies. Microsoft can see threats coming. The Playstation was a trojan horse into the living room. MS pumped a lot of money into putting a machine into people's living rooms that would stop them from needing to buy a Playstation. This is a long term strategy.
What Apple should do is buy Sun and put those hardware engineers to work on making the worlds best game console. That console should be a server with thin clients around the house, it should serve up great games and movies to the tv, and also let you wirelessly connect a Monitor and keyboard thin client and use Googles internet office suite for working on all your work like needs. TV and music on demand would be served up through Apples iTunes store. With this strategy Apple/Google/Sun could take over the entire household computing needs. And you know it would be cool because it comes from Apple.
Of course in the meantime I'm going to end up buying Vista, Office 2007, a Nintendo Wii and think about an Xbox 360.
Australian running a company that does C# / C++ / Java / SQL / Python / Mathematica
Why would anyone compare AOL-Netscape to Google-Apple? Aol and Netscape were both failing before they joined. Google and Apple are both doing very well and aren't exactly the same type of merge/join the AOL and Netcape. If memory serves me right AOL bought Netscape. Neither Apple nor Google is buying the other. It's just the CEO of one company serving on the board of another. It happens all the time with businesses.
Funny createSig(Witty remark, Odd reference)
{
return (Funny)remark + (Funny)reference;
}
Comes with a mullet, a swiss army knife, some little toy magnets, a straw, a rubber band, a paperclip, and a couple wires.
You make the computer yourself, or the bad guys get away.
"MS' sheer size, marketshare along with its diverse involments"
Microsoft has at least two achilles heels: Windows and Office. This is so since these are the only two money makers for Microsoft, the rest of their 'diverse involments' lose money hand over fist. If Microsoft were to be harmed in either of these two markets then it would be a severe blow.
I'd guess that the first of these weaknesses that will be exploited is in the Office market since it is easier to switch to another suite, i.e. OpenOffice, then it is to switch operating systems. Switching over to other non-Microsoft products paves the way towards helping people rid themselves of Windows as well.
Not likely. Alliance or not. In fact no-ones even ready to challenge them, Apple being the strongest contender, but to do *that* Apple would have to give something up I don't believe their willing to do.
Namely, their hardward platform. Let OS X/Tiger/Cheetah/whatever run on the same commodity hardware Windows has for ages and watch uses start to drift. Of course there's give and theirs take, Apple will have lost the ability to micromanage the hardware like they always have (mostly for the better I think) but then there are a lot of people like me who have invested heavily in PC hardware (built from commodity/specialized PC parts) who wouldn't dream of scrapping the whole system to change the operating system.
Then there's the question that *really* puzzles me. I always heard the story of how Apple makes most of its revenue off its hardware sales, and that sounded reasonable enough, then (for testing, my company does web-app development) we get an Apple and find out even point releases are sold seperately as upgrades. Is it just me or does that make it look like Micrsoft is really doing *me* a favor, namely by continuing to update and support their software platform until its end of life?
Thats a legitimate question by the way. I'm not an Apple basher (I'd pay $120 or whatever the going price is to see if I liked it on PC hardware), I do use Windows (XP Pro, on Workstations) and I manage more Linux servers (RHELu3) then any and all of that combined.
But in business Micrsoft is kind and not just because its the right OS (although that it and always has been Microsofts target market). Take any mid-sized business, inventory their hardware and tell me how much its going to cost to replace each system? Because you can't just do one, one there, thats where the compatibility issues come in. Say we've got 100 workstation no at EOL, nobody is going to sign off on a purchase order to replace all those functioning systems unless they have a lot of extra cash and a serious bias. Because in business sense it just doesn't add up. Then remember those EOL systems, you know, the ones the interns use, file stores, backup systems, whatever. Companies invest a lot of capitol into a solution like that and you're absolutely right, its going to be hard to topple.
I'm still not sure what Apples strategy is with the move to Intel, but so far it seem clear that moving into Micrsofts territory is not on the map. Things could change, I'd like that, or Redmond could be the 10,000 lb gorilla they aren't willing to challenge.
Quack, quack.
So, it's just a CEO that sits around a board meeting a couple of times per year giving advice. It's NOT a merger, it's NO co-operation in products, there IS NO alliance.
It's just that the media and a lot of lame bloggers make a big hype out of this. Everybody else just yawns along with Redmond.
....but as far as the rest of humanity is concerned, there aren't many things that are less cool....
You're kidding right? Do you really think most of the world can tell what particular sub-genus of nerd you fit into?
Clue for you - we're all just computer guys to most people.
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
Pending? Its more like: pending, pending, hype, pending, shedding features.... pending, more hype, pending, shedding some more features...... but we know it's coming.... right???? pending, pending, even more hype, pending, shedding even more features.... any moment now!!!! pending, pending........
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
The guy calls someone a douche bag and it's moderated "redundant." That's gotta be a blow to the GP's self-esteem. It's so self-evident that he's a douche that it's redundant to actually say it.