David Emery Online

Google and Apple, sitting in a tree...

30 August 2006

... making back-room corporate decisions. Yes, it doesn’t fit as well as k-i-s-s-i-n-g, but, well I doubt I’m going to be able to use that anytime soon.

As you may have already heard, Google CEO Eric Schmidt has joined Apple’s board of directors . This means both a lot less then it might sound like it should, but also a lot more then it would normally.

If you look into the set of people that currently occupy Apple’s board you’ll see that they really haven’t made much – if any – noticeable difference to Apple’s workings, with the possible exception of Millard Drexler, who’s experience as CEO of Gap surly helped in the success of the Apple Stores.

What you don’t, however, see on the board are any competitors to Apple – and how would that really work if their were? So, this move means that Google and Apple – at least for the foreseeable future – aren’t going to be competing. This has some pretty interesting ramifications in the various spaces that they currently either co-habitate in, or would logically move to in the future.

The most obvious of these is the iTunes Music Store. Google’s video offering is both currently unsuccessful and also in direct competition to videos on iTunes. Couple this with the complete absence of a Google Music store – which would be the obvious next step – and you can begin to see how this potential partnership could work. Firstly, iTunes could add Google Video integration into iTunes – á la the podcast section. As Google already offer videos to download in an iPod compatible format, this shouldn’t be too tricky.

Next, they should enable DRM interoperability with videos between iTunes and Google video, so that paid-for videos on Google can play on the iPod (I’d also guess this won’t happen, as Apple really want to keep its DRM to itself, but stranger things have..). To top it all off, Google then fully integrates both video, iTunes music and podcasts (which Google hasn’t touched in any way) into its primary search, in a similar way music is at the moment but featuring prominent iTunes branding and links.

Coming from the other direction, it raises interesting questions about the future of .Mac. Apple is coming under increasing pressure to revitalise .Mac with the vast array of free web based services offering similar features, so a tie-up with Google could work out really nicely. Imagine a Apple branded Gmail variant as the web email interface, with 2gb of storage, coupled with your iDisk being replaced with Google’s upcoming online storage service. Add in Google Calendar -> iCal integration, and iChat -> Gtalk and it’s a combination that could work well for both companies.

The price of .Mac, or course, stays the same – the big difference is that you don’t see any adverts (as you do on Google’s versions) coupled with the OS integration .Mac currently enjoy.

While some of these possibilities are a bit pie in the sky, some of them are virtually guarantied – how else are they going to avoid competing with each other?