Battle of the Heavyweights - Google vs. Apple
If we look at the heavyweights of the technological world at present, we could look at many a company. Microsoft has been at the top of the pile financially for 30 years, and Sun, Intel, Yahoo all may have had their time jousting for the title, but in today's technological arena, there are two contenders who, although very different, have the mantra of a mafia don, greedy for more power in more markets with less competition.
If you were to look at the financial numbers for both companies, you'd see that they have been jostling for position over the last 5 years, but as of today, Apple is beating Google with a value of $209.4 billion to Google's $179.2 billion, but the numbers only tell one side.
Apple is over 30 years old while Google is a relative nipper at 12 years, but what they both share is vision and leadership from very central characters. It's obvious that these companies are not democratic organizations; rather, they are autocratic in leadership, and this has proven beneficial to both. However, in this technological future, there will only be space for one leader - but who will it be?
Apple makes hardware, it makes art, it makes possessions, and it doesn't trust the public to maintain it, so it locks it down. Google, on the other hand, makes software, it makes formulas, it's an ideas factory, and they want everything they do to be open and free. Two companies with two completely different ideals but hungry to expand into each other's back yard with a lot of cash in the bank to make it happen.
To give an example, when Apple released the iPhone 3 years ago, Steve Jobs said that the iPhone was 5 years ahead of the game and, to a certain extent, he was right: most manufacturers are only now starting to release phones with software that comes close to the original iPhone.
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