The problem is when that innovative company becomes the new IBM/GE/Oracle and starts treating every client as nothing else but a revenue stream instead of focusing on creating new and innovative products. I don’t think Apple/Google are there yet but they are clearly moving into that direction.
Both Google and Apple have reached this stage at around the same time in my opinion - both are now milking existing users rather than looking for innovative new markets or products. Once companies grow to a certain size it seems almost inevitable.
The fundamental problem is that Apple has been focused on making end user products for a very long time, but Google has been dealing with data and the cloud for 20 years.
Apple could probably become as good as Google at its own game, but it would take a lot of effort and I don't think Tim Cook et al have the vision to move in that direction like Microsoft did.
I feel Apple will become more and more irrelevant as years pass. With a bandwidth singularity end user hardware will be irrelevant in 10-20 years from now and other companies like Google and Microsoft are slowly catching up in making great end user experiences.
Everyone has its corner. Apple is irrelevant in web. Google in enterprise. Oracle in mobile. We can't expect one company to dominate all markets. That's not possible, not to say unhealthy for innovation.
But there has to be a better model than delegating innovation to Apple and Google. It's a huge conflict of interest too, since they are both Ad companies.
We're heading down a path where there are products that only Apple and Google can build, and it's a huge problem for the ecosystem.
I have become something of an Apple fanboy, but I completely agree with this sentiment. I would love to see a company that could create an Apple-like computing experience but with a much more progressive view toward the computer industry (licensing, developer support, even product specification info). With Android, Google seems to be the strongest challenger, but I suspect they will likely never have the focus necessary to compete successfully in Apple's market, much less any other existing company.
Google has innovated plenty. To name a few things that Apple copied: notifications, cloud sync, OTA updates, and voice actions (as a part of Siri). Also, simply buying up an existing company is a pretty weak form of "innovation."
Apple is no way positioned to harm Google in any way on the longer run. In many ways Apple's products are like what video games, music albums and stereos were in the past. They are products with massive hype, craze and cult following of some kind.
Google on the other hand is a massive Innovation factory, churning innovations by the years. No body really is close to them when it comes to search, on line advertising etc. On top of that they have some of the top most properties on the internet- Mail, News, G+ etc etc.
What you are seeing now is Google really flooding market with their other innovative stuff Google TV, Android, wearable computing, self driving cars, offering peta byte scale data analytic engines etc. Engineering innovation is awesome too.
Apple cannot compete with that sort of company. Their best bet is to assume that their cult following will remain and will go gaga every time they come with a new product.
Don't get me wrong, my personal take on this is not based on anything about these 2 companies except what is exposed via press releases and news.
These days it seems to happen quite often that when I read about what's happening at Google I'm genuinely amazed. And so often when I read about what's happening at Apple I'm underwhelmed or disappointed.
Not that things can't change, but my impression is the entire core culture / trajectory of Apple will take many years to change even if they decided to start today. My hunch is they won't, and will end up paying the price for it.
Since Apple has partnered with IBM, its once arch-enemy, I wonder if Google will partner with...Oracle, to enter in enterprise. Wouldn't that be funny.
But I'm actually hoping that doesn't happen, and Google has other avenues they can use to enter enterprise more forcefully anyway.
Actually, the key takeaway is that some analyst last year thought they were paying $3 billion. They’re making $10 billion on services now. Hardly seems that concerning, especially given the growth and the fact that you have no idea what Google is paying them. I also fail to see how a huge and rapidly growing services segment indicates that they’re no longer innovating. Especially given their total dominance and revenue growth in their other categories.
Your comments all over this thread kinda just make it seem like you have an ax to grind against Apple.
Oh man, not sure where to begin with responding to this.
I'm not saying Google is incredible (my opinion is quite the contrary actually). However, I am saying Apple is holding the web back, in a fairly annoying way, for developers.
The fact that they are a rich corporate does not mean they always will be, or that they're conducting their business in the best way possible. There are plenty of examples of rich tech businesses that lost their market share very quickly. We don't even need to look that far into the past for an example: BlackBerry sticks out in my mind. I believe their stubbornness and resistance to change caused their downfall. I feel it may be a similar fate for Apple, and for similar reasons, unless they change their attitude towards the web.
Agreed. Considering their size the innovation output of these companies is really low. Google still hasn’t found anything besides selling ads and total surveillance and Apple mainly makes things thinner.
Wait-wait-wait. So is every other company doing this or aren't they? You're moving the goalposts pretty fast here.
Google is young (>10 years), but they have a large portfolio. But you can't find a "pattern that would argue they would never do so"? And that proves that Apple is doing really just the same thing everybody else are? The fact that others really aren't, but you can't find a proof that they never would?
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