Google vs. Apple, this could get messy…
Posted by Andrew | Filed under Mac Media, iPhone
It was Steve Jobs who pointed out during his excellent D8 discussion this year that it was Google who decided to enter the phone market and compete with Apple. They of course made this decision after Eric Schmidt became a member of Apple’s board in 2006 only to resign after issues concerning conflict of interest last year. And now, Wall Street Journal reports that Google wants to enter the online music industry. Not a lot of real information yet, but they say that it will launch at some point with in the next year.
In other news, people in Palo Alto, California have reported what seems to be rampant screaming of various obscenities. Well, clearly he saw this coming, right? Google is the largest online services company in the world I think, and it is only natural that after Apple and Amazon have entered the online music industry that Google would follow. Especially since they do have Android, and their is money to made in music and ringtone sales on mobile phones as has been already proved.
But does Apple really have to worry about Google and their dinky music store? It’s not like they have to worry about their dinky phone operating system, or at least not yet. Nielsen’s recent reports indicate that Apple has 28% of the smartphone market compared to Android’s 9, which is also still less than Microsoft’s and RIM’s (which is still the dominate).
And look at iTunes, it has over a quarter market share of the U.S. music industry. That’s not a quarter of digital downloads, that’s overall against bog box retailers like Best Buy and Wal-Mart. They hold a vast majority of the digital market which is already crowded with the likes of Amazon, Real Networks, and some other meaningless companies that don’t matter anymore like MySpace and Microsoft.
And frankly, Apple should be happy that Google wants to enter the digital music market and potentially hook it into the Android OS. It will take some of the heat off from the investigation that the Department of Justice is conducting of Apple and iTunes.
