1 post tagged “google”
A week or so ago, I sent an email out to a few colleagues and friends to give them my not-so-brief and highly speculative analysis of how the Google / Apple strategic relationship might play out. I remember waking up at 6am to a phone call from the U.S. and despite being very tired, I made the mistake of "quickly" jumping on my computer.
Of course, once I read the Google / Apple news, it was all over. When a few people commented on my email, and others asked me if I wrote the email, I thought I may as well share some of my half-baked ideas with the rest of the world. Keep in mind that I spewed this out in around 25 minutes in a semi-concious state.
So, without further ado, here's the director's cut of my prior email:
"Jobs already has Pixar/Disney in his pocket and now Google appears to be ready to enter a significant strategic relationship with Apple. I give up! The world is in Google/Apple's pocket - this would normally scare me a lot more, but I might very well trust Jobs/Schmidt/Page/Brin as the leaders of the free world more than almost any other combination of people. Plus, Bill Gates is now the biggest philanthropist in the history of mankind, so he's joining the action on two fronts.
Apple's biggest weakness at this point is their inherently contradictory position regarding the use of Digital Rights Management (DRM). They are the ones who popularized the whole "rip, mix, burn" campaign, and then locked up peoples ability to do this on a large scale. In Europe, where people are more liberal about intellectual property, there is already a huge uproar over the monopolistic tendencies of Apple regarding their tight control of what end-users can do with downloaded media. I can't blame Apple entirely because their model has been very succesful, and maintaining control over hardware, software and distribution has worked wonders for them. They wouldn't have been able to convince the media companies to hand over their libraries if it weren't "protected," and Jobs, the marketing and strategy genius that he is, realized that the pragmatic move was to give up the battle on copyright for the sake of providing a damn good service that people would use and that would ultimately change the rules of the game. However, there is only so long that a company can maintain its core following of obsessive fans who ultimately drive the hipness factor of Apple, as these people are starting to realize that Apple is not fully aligned with their values. While Apple has become a more mainstream company, their core followers are their most valuable asset, serving as evangelists for their products, so they can ill afford to abandon them.Apple and Google Officially In Bed Together
Tuesday, 29 August 2006
Dr. Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google, was named to the board of directors at Apple today. Read the press release from Apple.
Schmidt arrived at Google after a stints as the CEO of Novell and as the CTO of Sun, where he headed the company's Java group. He's also an alum of Xerox PARC. Since landing at the search company, he has supervised Google's marked growth through rapid development of a wide range of web services. With this move, Apple is hoping Schmidt will put some of his experience steering a company with diversified products through a fickle marketplace to use.
So Sayeth Steve Jobs:
"Eric is obviously doing a terrific job as CEO of Google, and we look forward to his contributions as a member of Apple's board of directors... Like Apple, Google is very focused on innovation and we think Eric's insights and experience will be very valuable in helping to guide Apple in the years ahead."
OK, prediction time. Google and Apple team up to distribute music and movies (for real this time)? Google tools integrated into Mac OS X? Maybe -- at the very least -- Google Desktop for the Mac?
All signs point to good things ahead. As Valleywag notes, this is a sad day in Redmond, WA."
http://blog.wired.com/monkeybites/index.blog?entry_id=1547630
The huge move by Universal the other day, which essentially is an attempt to make a completely free and legal peer to peer music distribution service, whereby all compensation will be derived from advertising revenue, shows that the market is starting to figure out ways to get people what they want for free. That and things like bitorrent clients getting built into browsers which will essentially re-introduce the Napster mentality to the masses, will make it harder for Apple to continue their approach. I think that Jobs is actually well aware of the situation, but realized that he had to ease the old-school music/media groups into this business and that piracy was their biggest concern. However, with the leverage he now has, don't be surprised if Apple's next big/bold move is to screw DRM altogether. I wouldn't put it past them - and if any one could pull a move like this off, it would be Jobs. This would be a big blow to any slim chance that Microsoft's Zune player has of getting off the ground.
To some degree, cool techy early adopters give Apple a free pass, but there is growing sentiment that Apple is too closed/proprietary and that ultimately people who pay for media want to be able to use it as they wish, on any device, etc. Furthermore, Apple's essential monopoly in the education space is in an area where sooner or later, people are going to realize that they have tied schools/content into a closed iTunes distribution platform, and therefore it will put more pressure on Apple to change their proprietary/closed approach, at least for this part of their business. Furthermore, as the mp3/cell phone market converge, although Apple clearly is developing a cell phone strategy, users will have more choice, and this will accelerate the latent disatisfaction of users not being to able to control the media they are paying for.
Now imagine if Disney had the balls to loosen the copyright/DRM on all of their content library and allowed people not only to access their stuff using the Apple/Google distribution platform, but to share it, mix it, etc. Whereas this would be seen as dangerous and risky, I am almost certain it would do nothing but wonders for Disney. Disney "pirates" (no pun intended) would immediately be out of business, and their immense talent for rapidly copying and distributing media would be repurposed towards adding value to the vast Disney content database. You would get mash-ups and mixes of a very high quality that could be monetized. How would this benefit Disney? Well, they would be the front-runners in this area, and could probably cherry pick some of the best talent and hire them to create for them. The freeing up of content for distribution does not mean that all content would be free. People will still pay to go to the movies, as well as for getting access to content that is new. But in the long run, the revolution taking place with respect to advertising would probably be the way to best monetize content in this new model. This could be the only way that Disney prevents itself from following the inevitable, albeit slow, path that all huge media companies find themselves on towards obsoletion.
Now let's take this thought experiment one step further. After years of SUN trying to push the "network computer," an idea that was just too early, it looks as though the importance of the OS is also rapidly decreasing. In fact, you would think that since MAC OS X is built upon a Unix core, and since Apple now produces hardware that can run Windows and Linux, that they would just open up their OS and make it completely open source. That would really be a problem for all the Linux desktop projects out there, such as Linspire (very cool stuff), but it would be a huge boot to the head against Microsoft. Plus, the Linux community would probably focus their efforts on improving Mac OS X further, in addition to creating niche OS's that were used for specific purposes or for alternative platforms, etc. Kinda like how Opera realized it couldn't compete with Firefox, and therefore made a strategic move to make browsers for Nintendo DS and Wii systems, which in the long run, could be a HUGE homerun for them, as it's possible that the Wii will become the first system to really introduce bring the Internet to the TV on a global scale.
Now sit back and imagine that this Google/Apple announcement comes on the heels of the news that Google is taking direct aim at Microsoft in both the consumer and corporate desktop productivity market. Couple that with Bill Gates growing disinterest in Microsoft, which in some ways is philosophically contrary to his latest philanthropic projects, in that if he wants to help eliminate AIDS in Africa, end poverty and introduce the whole world to cheap computing, what better way to do it then to just make Windows free for everyone? I guess there have been rumblings that an ad-based version of Vista is on the horizon. Again, free doesn't mean that there aren't ways to make lots of money through other means, such as advertising, services, corporate support, etc.
Mac and Google have the perfect combination of desktop/web/hardware/software and coolness/hipness/etc. to take down the Windows monopoly. On top of that, with Google Video and iTunes, etc., they're not in a bad position media wise either. And Mac is in the best position when it comes to powerful desktop software for production and editing of images/music/video, which is probably the last area of software that will move fully online due to the heavy computing demands that would probably require everyone to have huge mega-broadband to overcome.
If this partnership is as strategic a move as some are anticipating, the world may have very well changed in a bigger way than most realize. Of course, all of this may play out differently, and it will certainly take a while, but my gut feeling is that this may be the straw that breaks the proverbial camel's back.
What does this mean over the short term? Maybe not that much, but in the long term, I think this is yet another sign of how the greater technology/Internet/media/copyright landscape is changing."
One of my blogging goals was to try to keep my writing crisp and concise, whereby a single post consisted of more/less a single idea presented in an easily digestible nugget of information-rich micro-content. Well, I guess I've failed miserably already, but as they say, "rules are made to be broken."
