Apple action ‘threatens Google’: “Apple’s patent case against HTC may have implications for all phone makers using Google software, an analyst warns.”
(Via BBC News.)
Oh dear! Is this the first shots in a Google Apple war?
I hope not, such a war could only be bad, not only for both sides, but mostly for the customers, us!
Both sides have lots of money and goof lawyers, so there would be just one winner in this and that would be the lawyers them selves!
The thing is that that while there businesses do cross over, it is not there core businesses which threaten each other (Apple is not trying to do search or on line advertising and Google is not trying to enter the hardware market). However Apple do seem to regard mobile computing as the future and hence the iPhone and iPad are the way they are heading. This is probably the right way to go for a hardware company, but still Google isn’t a hardware company.
There are reports, well rumours really, that despite the law suits, Apple had Google have a ‘gentlemen’s agreement’ and Apple won’t go after Google directly. Two points here
1) when the sorts of sums of money that are going to be involved here, are at risk, there are no gentlemen’s agreements.
2) Apple don’t have to go after Google directly to hurt them, going after the hardware suppliers is enough.
In the end I don’t think Apple really have much to worry about. I’ve not used an Android phone yet, but from the sounds of it, they cater for two different markets. The iPhone is for the sort of person that accepts a loss of freedom in return for stability. Android is for those how want total freedom. I think there is room for both in the market to make money by the bucket full!
But it could be that we’er all wrong and this is not what it looks like (a Google Apple war) and just Apple protecting it’s patents, which is something it is fully entitled to do. I hope that’s what it is, but it does seem that Apple has waited till now to do this. Well that’s what I thought at first, but now I can start to see a nastier side to this. Maybe Apple has waited till now, so that the competitors have invested large amounts of money in this technology and that a multi touch type display has become almost expected in any new smartphone. Give this the competitors can’t afford not to have multitouch, so if they lost they will have to pay Apple licensing fees, if they want to try and compete in this market.
Maybe I’m wrong, I hope I am because if I am this shows a very dark and nasty side to Apple. And I’d still like to like Apple!
