An Alliance between Apple and Google

Man from Google Joins Apple’s Board

by Yaroslav Lyssenko

[ 09/05/2006 | 11:54 PM ]

Last week Eric E. Schmidt, Google’s chief executive, was named to Apple Computer’s board. This marked a new era of cooperation between powerful companies, and many believe it to be a strategical step by Apple’s co-founder, Steven Jobs against Microsoft’s domination.

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“The old social networks in Silicon Valley run very deep. And this reminds us that Silicon Valley has a common enemy to the north,” noted AnnaLee Saxenian, a leading scholar of the industry and dean of the School of Information at the University of California, Berkeley.

A news story by The New York Times reads that even in a valley where careers leave few degrees of separation between any two companies, the Apple announcement was remarkable. Schmidt, brought in five years ago to guide Google and its young founders to a stock offering, is Silicon Valley’s consummate insider. Jobs, who spent years in the industry wilderness before retaking the helm of Apple, is its defining outsider.

“There are many possibilities for a complementary strategy between their companies. This week, for example, Google announced that it was beginning to weave together a number of services that could be a Web-based competitor to Microsoft Office. And Jobs has skillfully driven a wedge into the dominant PC computing standard established by Microsoft’s Windows software and Intel’s hardware - the so-called Wintel alliance - by recently adopting Intel’s processor for Apple’s Macintosh computers,” says an article at Cnet News.com.

Schmidt’s appointment set off chatter about linking the Google search engine to iTunes, Apple’s online music service - reinforcing Apple’s pre-eminence in a category where Microsoft is seeking a grip. That would also have broader implications for the entertainment industry, an industry repeatedly put on the defensive by both Apple and Google.

“The studios, and for that matter, all the copyright owners, don’t want to see only one place become their sole retail outlet - whether it is Google or Apple or Sony,” said William Randolph Hearst III, a veteran Silicon Valley executive and investor.

• Cnet News.com: Man from Google Joins Apple’s Board.