Google Search, Google Ads, Google Phones, Google Browser, Google Netbooks, Google Tablets, Google TVs, then what?
Vic Gundotra, vice president of engineering for Google, suggested during Google I/O conference that Google’s entrance into the mobile phone market was a move meant to directly oppose the likes of Apple and its tightly controlled iPhone platform.
“If Google did not act, we faced a Draconian future where one man, one company, one device, one carrier would be our only choice,” Gundotra said. “That’s a future we don’t want.”
Really? Or the future Google doesn’t want is one in which they don’t control the ad networks fully? Aren’t they entering every market in which advertising is a crucial part of the picture?
Gundotra’s story earned applause from the crowd as a black-and-white image reading “Not the Future We Want” and “1984” was displayed — clearly referencing Apple’s Ridley Scott-directed “1984” advertisement, which aired during the third quarter of Super Bowl XVII on Jan. 22, 1984 — without specifically naming the iPhone maker.
If Apple is the new IBM, then Google is the new Microsoft?
Google is following Apple every step of the way even since the iPhone introduction, and in some cases preceding it as if the search giant was well aware of Apple’s strategy.
That is actually a fact since Google CEO Eric Schmidt resigned from the Apple Board of Directors no earlier then last summer, as both companies continued to enter the same markets… Just like Bill Gates had early access to the Macintosh prototypes, Schmidt had supposedly access to Apple’s plans for the next 5 years or so.
The removal of Schmidt from Apple Board of Directors was seen as necessary as Google and Apple now compete in numerous markets in the technology sector: Google’s Android mobile operating system competes with Apple’s iPhone; both companies recently made large mobile advertising acquisitions; Google’s forthcoming Chrome OS will see the company enter the traditional PC space; and the Chrome browser competes with Apple’s Safari.
Of course this is pure speculation but can it really be just coincidence?
“We did not enter the search business. They entered the phone business,” Jobs reportedly said. “Make no mistake, Google wants to kill the iPhone. We won’t let them.”
However Apple did enter the advertising business with iAds, in direct competition with Google’s owned AdMob.
Despite the companies differences and the growing rivalry, Jobs was spotted having coffee in public with Schmidt back in March. The two were seen having a chat at a cafe in Palo Alto, Calif. Was Schmidt reassuring Apple’s CEO that Google’s real interest is in the advertising market?
This week, Google announced its entrance into the set-top-box arena, where Apple has been present for years with the Apple TV. Google TV aims to integrate both Web browsing and cable TV into one device running its Android operating system, and will arrive this fall.
In other words, Google is entering the largest market for advertising.
Too bad the Apple TV has been a “hobby” — in Steve Jobs words — for a very long time for Apple. Google might be doing what has been sitting in a drawer in Cupertino long before the first Apple TV was introduced, but Jobs never had the interest to build or invest into.
Will this move from Google wake up Apple that hobbies can’t stand the competition or will Apple give up on this one?
Sure thing, I would love to hear that chat the two guys had in that cafe.