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Google Phone Could Drive Apple Into Allegiance With Microsoft
rsmiller510 writes "A BusinessWeek report suggests that the Nexus One release marks the latest volley in an escalating war between Google and Apple, one that could force Apple into working more closely with Microsoft. 'When companies start to imitate one another, it's usually either an extreme case of flattery—or war. In the case of Google and Apple, it's both. Separated by a mere 10 miles in Silicon Valley, the two have been on famously good terms for almost a decade. ... Now the companies have entered a new, more adversarial phase. With Nexus One, Google, which had been content to power multiple phonemakers' devices with Android, enters the hardware game, becoming a direct threat to the iPhone. With its Quattro purchase, Apple aims to create completely new kinds of mobile ads, say three sources familiar with Apple's thinking. The goal isn't so much to compete with Google in search as to make search on mobile phones obsolete. ... Some analysts believe the Apple-Google battle is likely to get much rougher in the months ahead. Ovum's Yarmis thinks Apple may soon decide to dump Google as the default search engine on its devices, primarily to cut Google off from mobile data that could be used to improve its advertising and Android technology. Jobs might cut a deal with—gasp!—Microsoft to make Bing Apple's engine of choice, or even launch its own search engine, Yarmis says."
This conspiracy theory is half baked. Google's core business is search. And based on what we've seen from the Nexus One so far, apple has nothing to fear whatsoever from google in the mobile phone market. The Nexus One hardware is nice, but the software is crap. It's not even remotely a threat to apple's iPhone market. And don't forget that apple sells computers and mp3 players too. This is not enough for apple to ally with Microsoft. They tried that once before, and they got IE for mac out of it. They've learned from that mistake.
Never going to happen, the Apple market is not the phone market but the mac market which is directly competing with microsoft (PC front). They have more than enough capital to create their own search engine and plenty of popular opinion to market it. Not to mention that the whole Apple fanism is based on the belief that MS stole their software.
There are plenty of search engines out there Yahoo comes to mind.
Jobs thinks everything Microsoft does is second-rate. He won't team up with them for that reason alone, never mind the fact that Apple has been burned by trusting Microsoft in the past, and I can't see that mistake being made again.
~Philly
Yeah, a company whose entire business is predicated on cool can't partner with uncool. Uncool is contagious. Cool isn't.
Agreed, there has been such a longstanding history of apple versus pc(Microsoft) and Microsoft versus apple bashing in the recent past that if anything like this was going to happen, it would take a lonnnng wait before that mindset was out of consumers minds. Not only would it muck up years of work priming the marketplace to pit one against the other, but it would require that Microsoft allow the mainstream to consider Apple equivalent and Apple would have to effectively dump the "we're shinier and trendier than those balding business dweebs" tact that they've invested millions in imprinting on the 18-34 demographic.
Not saying such a thing could NEVER happen; However it would be a huge deadweight loss for both companies current marketing strategies, between Apples image play and Microsoft's attempts to make Apples offerings appear irrelevant, that I can't see EITHER company even considering it in the short term.
Ice Cream has no bones.
Not to mention that the whole Apple fanism is based on the belief that MS stole their software.
In my case, you're completely wrong about that. The quibble about MS pinching Apple's software is old news (~1988?) and nobody gives a shit any more. I happen to quite like the fact that OS X behaves like a conventional Unix box if I pull up a terminal window.
Microsoft has persisted in imposing its own standards and interfaces, which just don't suit the way I work.
Why is it always "war"? You know, it's just possible that the market for mobile phones is large enough to support many different vendors. Apple has consistently shown that they're happy with just a portion of the markets they play in--provided it's the most lucrative end of that market. The iPod is more an anomaly than the norm in terms of how Apple approaches its various markets. Google and Apple stand to gain more here if they continue to cooperate than if they become all out adversaries.
Apple can and will do anything they stick their mind too.
Except write an operating system with preemptive multitasking.
No this does not make perfect sense. Steve has a feud with Bill going back to NeXT. Sorry, but this will never fly. Apple has made their continent and are growing it.
Sorry, but any search engine that requires me to download a browser extension gets an automatic fail in my opinion.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
And Microsoft better announce *something* regarding Windows Mobile soon. They're already on life support, it's not going to be long before someone pulls the plug on the whole division.
Microsoft has committed to continuing Windows Mobile for industrial devices even if they completely fail in the smartphone market. They'll just continue working on it for rugged handheld computers built by Motorola for the likes of Fedex etc.