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."

Comments

Re:This makes perfect sense

[postbigbang]

Grudge? Microsoft essentially saved Apple by loaning it much needed $$$.

The 'enemy of my enemy is my friend' argument still doesn't hold much water. Microsoft's mobile strategy is in tatters-- no wins and all losses. Apple's getting creds for business use and is the one to beat in consumer.

Android has a lot of mindshare, but it lags in marketshare. Yes, it's cool, but it's also much more anarchy than business ecosystem at this point. The face of Android is Google, and it competes with Moblin, the MacOS in iPhone, not to mention a half-dozen smart competitors like RIM.

BusinessWeek is looking for unique page counts. Nothing here. Move along.

This Makes Zero Sense

[neoshroom]

Mark my words: Apple will not partner with Bing. The reason for this is simple: Bing is an inferior product. Don't believe me? Using Bing for any length of time evidences this. I'll give you a simple example. Let's say you want the carbon Firefox icon. You search for "carbon firefox."

Here are the results for Google.
Here are the results for Bing.

Now, they share many sites, but out of the links provided more of the Bing results go astray. Bing, for example, decides it's horribly relevant to link you to The Carbon County Chamber of Commerce.

Your assertion that Apple isn't large enough to create their own search engine is also preposterous. How many employees does Yahoo! have? About 14,000. How many employees does Apple have? About 35,000. Apple will not partner with Bing because Bing simply isn't better than Google. Apple would likely create their own search engine before doing so.

As a side-note, that carbon Firefox icon is pretty nice.

Re:Bing on an Apple product?

[Zero__Kelvin]

"It does do that. For example googling for "Slashdot" returns a link that on mouse over show as "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slashdot" in the status bar, but in fact is http://www.google.com/url?...

I guess you use Microsoft products, because I use Firefox on Linux and it does not now, nor has it ever, done any such thing. You are blaming Google for something Microsoft is doing. I copied and pasted the links to make certain that I am not missing anything in case something changed in the last few days. I have been Googling and then copying and pasting links for many years and it has never behaved as you and the GP describe. Then again, I learned my lesson a long time ago.