2 Companies Apple Will Not Let Die and 1 It Just Killed
Obviously, I do not expect Google to go anywhere anytime soon. The company will remain a force for the foreseeable future. But, really, that's not the point.
Does any company, especially a tech company, exist merely to do really well? Not a chance, particularly once you reach the upper echelon that houses the Googles and Apples of the world. That would be like the New Jersey Devils expressing satisfaction with second place.
As such, Google does not deserve a free pass just because Apple will not eat its lunch, right away, like it did Research in Motion's(RIMM) and a whole host of inferior others. Apple makes Google look slow and silly. That's bad enough.
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And it's not simply because Apple finally ditched Google Maps. We've seen that coming for some time now. I barely consider it news. It goes deeper than that.
When I hammered Google on Monday, I chided it for owning a mobile phone company, having its own operating system and loads of content, yet it is a destination for nothing other than search, save a little YouTube hijinks on the side. And it makes its money by serving ads that look like spam. What a country!
If Google wasn't busy building cars that drive themselves and tinkering with other projects that do not generate revenue or enhance its competitive position, it might have used its acquisition of Zagat to put an end to the experiments known as Yelp(YELP) and Open Table(OPEN) .
Apple is so nimble that it's able to coolly and calmly pick and choose the things it will keep in-house and what it will outsource to mere mortals. At WWDC on Monday, Apple, for all intents and purposes, threw aircraft flotation devices out to both Yelp and Open Table by integrating them into iOS 6. It also raised the stakes, in a good way, by finally integrating Facebook(FB) and saying such nice things about Twitter.