If I could make any predictions for 2010 the most obvious one would be an epic “pow-wow” between two of the most unassuming companies of the last decade. In the past five years Google and Apple went from highly niche companies to essentially (especially in the case of Google) running the web. The main aim at Google is to sell advertising space and in order to grow even bigger, they need to go into the hardware and software space. It seems though, Apple is their target.
Today the Nexus One Android phone is to be announced at a Google press conference and it is obviously an assault on the iPhone. Android is growing in leaps and bounds and has the potential (save for maybe Maemo but that’s not consumer friendly yet) to be much bigger and better than the iPhone has and ever will be. Unless Apple pulls something amazing out of the bag, the 1 Ghz processor and bigger screen on the Nexus One is a fairly appealing prospect. WIth Google buying Admob it makes sense for them to want to get more and more people mobile. Speaking of mobile advertising, Apple has recently bought “Quattro Wireless”, a direct competitor of the Admob network. See what I’m getting to here?
That said, the war between Google and Apple is not going to happen just in the mobile world. The Internet has been literally swamped with reports about an Apple Tablet but now there is also a report of how Google and HTC are creating a tablet running Android, a direct competitor to the supposed ‘iSlate”. The two companies compete in the browser space as well as online cloud services. Millions of people use Gmail, Google Calendar and other free services that Apple’s MobileMe will cost you $79 a year for.
While they don’t exactly compare Chrome OS to OSX there must be some thought on the side of Google to create a decent competitor to OSX. At the moment it’s a fairly ridiculous concept but has the potential.
The reality is that Apple has no choice but to use Google products. For example, Google search is the default option when making a search on the iPhone and realistically, if Apple wanted to totally lock out Google their only other options would be Microsoft’s Bing or Yahoo search. Both of these options are totally unrealistic.
Historically you’d expect Apple to totally shut out Google from their systems but as I’ve mentioned, this is totally impossible. What would be interesting is if Google cuts Apple out although the chances of this are minimal as it costs nothing for Google to be the default search provider for Apple.
I’d be surprised if Apple doesn’t pull a fairly aggressive move and decide to cut Google out completely to make sure they don’t loose any revenue to the Google. You’ve also got to remember that (as a category example) there is more than enough space with Smartphone’s as the category continues to grow. Nokia and Microsoft are also biding their time with competitive hardware and software platforms and have the potential to eclipse both Google and Apple as they squabble over a turf war.
Either way, I foresee a big spat between the two giants with 2010 having the opening salvo.
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I’m not so sure there’s going to be this huge show down that everyone is expecting. It’s all been based on Apple’s rejection of the Google voice app, and no one really knows what happened here and the reasons for it. For all we know, they were contractually bound to do so with AT&T.
Are Apple and Google really competing for the same market? Is the iPhone buyer also a potential Nexus buyer? A Mac user a potential ChromeOS user? I’m not so sure.