Yesterday’s announcement that Google CEO Eric Schmidt will join Apple’s board of directors is sparking all kinds of theories about what this alliance of giants means. The Wall Street Journal’s Nick Wingfield and Kevin Delaney have this piece today that posits all kinds of speculation.
Apple might be interested in generating advertising revenue by leveraging Google’s enormous expertise in this area. Steve Jobs and Schmidt share a mutual hatred of Microsoft. There’s already mutual overlap between the two companies, with half of Apple’s board members boasting ties of some kind to Google.
Mr. Schmidt’s election deepens existing high-level personal ties between the two companies. Genentech Inc. CEO Arthur Levinson sits on the Google and Apple boards, while former Vice President Al Gore and Intuit Inc. Chairman Bill Campbell, both Apple directors, are longtime advisers to Google. Mr. Schmidt’s appointment means half of Apple’s eight-person board of directors has a formal relationship with Google.
Om agrees that both companies are out to get Microsoft. Microsoft’s widely anticipated mobile media device and potential iPod-killer, Zune, is coming out soon. Google’s got online office productivity efforts that are designed to weaken Microsoft Office’s grip on the market. Both companies have online video ventures.
Don Dodge says that not much will happen unless there’s pent-up market demand for something. Unless money changes hands or there is a customer-driven need, the strengthened ties between Google and Apple are merely…nice.
Could Google and Sun cooperate on a StarOffice product to compete with Microsoft Office? Could Google and Apple cooperate on an iTunes product to compete with Zune? Could Google and Mozilla cooperate on a product to compete with Internet Explorer? Sure, there are lots of synergies smart people could imagine. But unless there is pent up customer demand…it isn’t going to matter.
Cynthia Brumfield at 7:53 AM|Comments(0)
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