The War Between Apple and Google is Getting Bloody, and For Good Reason
Google seems to be in fights with everyone lately.
It lashed out at Microsoft (who countered), its Google+ social network launch sent a message to Facebook (who's not pleased), and it's been defending Android software against iOS software for a while now.
When batting against Apple, Google ought to be wary. Apple's many particular patents and wise legal approaches make for some wicked curve balls—one of which forced Samsung to strike out recently, blocking sales of the Samsung Galaxy Tab throughout Europe.
Apple will sue over software or hardware or you name it—as has been demonstrated time and time again, in legal battles or otherwise, the company is adamant about maximizing its control over everything it possibly can.
Google has complained that competitors are trying to tear it down with lawsuits instead of innovating better products than Google, but it can be easily argued that Google has done the same many times, rendering the point moot.
The tablet space is interesting because so far it's a lot different than the smartphone space. With smartphones, you have Apple coming out in 2007 and making Nokia and RIM and kin look antiquated. Then Google jumps in the game the year after and shakes up the market again. Now you have Google and Apple both selling insane amounts of mobile phones.
But with tablets, Apple essentially created a market category, the modern consumer tablet. It didn't have any competition. And Google's Android platform was the first to become a competitor, but two years into the fight, it's still barely a blip on the radar. Here, Apple has the greatest potential for extending its reign as the ultimate king of this highly lucrative space. So of course it's going to defend all that it can. Sorry Google.
The tablet market was smaller than 20 million tablets in 2010, but this number should skyrocket to 230 million in 2015. Research firm Informa says it will take Google until 2016 to equal Apple's marketshare in this space. Why wouldn't Apple fight tooth and nail to keep its crown for as long as possible? Owning nearly an entire market—and a rapidly growing one, at that—is definitely worth battling in the courts over.
Google is mostly pissed because it simply doesn't have the patent portfolio of competitors like Apple and Microsoft because it's a newer entrant. It's not known for collecting patents en masse just for the sake of it, like many tech firms are, nor as it ever been particular about defending its own or attacking others'. But 2011 has been a bloody patent war, and the weak and wounded will be left behind, as they always are.
Google tried to pick up Nortel Networks' 6,000 wireless patents, but a consortium (including both Apple and Microsoft) swept in to steal them away. This aggressive move by Apple caps the essence of its playstyle of late: go hard, and go hard on everything.
And that's how it must be done when there's so much to lose and even more to win.
