It’s safe to say that Google and Apple have a less than symbiotic relationship battling it out over mobile since Android first rolled out in North America back in 2008. That battle has waged on with Android winning handily in numbers and Apple setting record-after-record in sales volumes. Of course one has to consider that Google mission statement is, “… to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” So let’s look at marketshare with that one mission in mind knowing that it’s through this organization and data collection that Google improves their advertising …
Interestingly however, due to who the users are the New York Times reported, “A recent analysis by Goldman Sachs estimated that Google collected about $11.8 billion on mobile search ads in 2014, with about 75 percent coming from ads on iPhones and iPads.” As Greg Sterling pointed out on Search Engine Land, that means about $8.8 billion of Google 2014 revenue would be dependent on Apple users. And if you’re Apple how do you attack Google? Why, you take away their revenue stream. And that’s precisely what Apple may do if the folks at CCS Insights are correct with their prediction …
By the end of 2017, Apple replaces Google with Bing as the default search provider in Safari @martin_garner #ccspredicts
— CCS Insight (@CCSInsight) November 18, 2015
Of course some would move to Google directly but the message is clear and with the deal on the table for Google to provide some of Yahoo! search results Bing will be the only option among those who don’t want to use Google. But there’s more …
The Battle In The Cloud
Apple’s CEO had made statements to Box CEO back in September regarding the size of the cloud marketing and Apple’s SVP of Software & Services appearing at the Dropbox Open conference. The message is that there is a collision between work and home computing and moving and sharing data. The cloud is that bridge and Apple is pushing into it with full force and an acquisition if rumored.
Not to be outdone, Google today announced that behind their massive and cutting-edge infrastructure but fledgling cloud marketshare they are placing Diane Green. Diane is one of the founders of VMware and a brilliant mind to be sure. The goal here … win enterprise. Google’s cloud infrastructure has done fine individuals but they have never been able to fully win over business. This move shows how serious they are about the cloud and will certainly be putting a name to it that Silicon Valley knows well. Clearly this will setup a battle with both Apple and Microsoft as well as the cloud leader Amazon and others but given that Google already has everything in place technically it shouldn’t be an expensive push (more than I have or I’d be retired but all things are relative).
This is going to be a very very interesting battle to watch. You can read more on this on the New York Times website here.