Google for Apple: Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt
My colleague Michael Hickins yesterday noted some of the peculiarities of a partnership between Google and Verizon beyond my question of whether Verizon will ultimately help move Android into a position competitive with the iPhone. In looking at his analysis, I realized that Apple's reactions of late to Google indicate that the former is scared that its existence is threatened. And it is -- just as thoroughly, if not more so, than that of Microsoft.
As Michael looked at the interplay of Google and Verizon, as well as Apple and AT&T, he observed that AT&T's announcement of allowing VoIP apps was tacit admission that it was responsible for blocking Google Voice. It's a great point, and I think leads easily to the conclusion that AT&T helped push the Verizon-Google deal into actuality. But much of the discussions I've seen regarding Google Voice have taken the either-Apple-or-AT&T road, and I think that's over simplifying the situation. Certainly AT&T has feared VoIP apps, both because it doesn't want to lose the voice revenue and it doesn't want smartphones pushing even more data over the network.
But Apple has a much bigger fear. For all its association with cutting edge computing, in a fundamental way, the company is conventional and tied to old and even tired ways of delivering services. Macs? Vendor device-centric computing. An iPod? Downloads music onto a vendor device-centric approach to playing, said device interacting with another vendor-centric computer -- a desktop or laptop. The iPhone? A combination cell phone and ... yup, vendor device-centric computing. Apple's business model rests completely on owning the physical device and providing services directly. It must also own the relationship with the customer and control the flow of information and applications onto their devices. (I wouldn't be surprised if the company eventually introduced hardware licensing, so you didn't own a device, but only leased it. OK, I'm being just a bit ironic.)
How much more old-school tech can you get? The future of computing of all forms lies in breaking the bonds between machine, operating system, application, and data. I've certainly been a critic of cloud-tinged Kool-Aid, but over the long run, absolutely that is how things are moving, and should. If the underlying point of computing is to enable people to solve problems of various kinds more easily, then solutions want ever greater flexibility. This is a sort of organized entropy, a veritable force of history and economics, if not nature. Hardware turns into a commodity and the services and information companies can offer will become king.
The friction and problems between Apple and Google aren't about an app or competition in handset operating systems, per se. We're seeing the beginning of the great divide between old and new business models. Behind the hauteur of Apple's mien lies the cold light of fear, a deer frozen in the headlights of time's inevitable march. Although it may take years for the lamps to arrive, eventually they will with the inevitable, bloody conclusion. Welcome to the Land of the Dinosaurs, where only quick evolution to something completely different offers a lifeline.
Image via stock.xchng user mmagallan, site standard license.