If I am Microsoft or Apple today, I’m fairly happy.
It’s obvious that Google is a huge threat to both Microsoft and Apple. Using its massive cash surpluses from owning the high-volume, high value search ads industry, Google is funding investments that are commoditizing both mobile and “desktop” operating systems … and significant chunks of the native application industry … programs that used to be developed solely for installation in an operating system environment.
The only defense is to attack the cash cow that is funding these efforts. Microsoft’s attempt is Bing. Apple’s attempt is owning the mobile OS and owning the advertising platform. Both are going to fail to significantly dethrone Google.
But Facebook might be another matter:
Facebook wants to launch the social semantic search engine as we alluded to during f8. Now that the search results are officially showing up as Facebook search results, the war has begun.
We’d expect a lot of developments in this space to emerge over the coming days, weeks, and months. We’ll be following Facebook’s entry into search closely.
via Facebook Unleashes Open Graph Search Engine, Declares War On Google.
With Microsoft attacking on the search engine front, Apple attacking on the mobile interface and advertising front, and Facebook now getting into social search … things get interesting. I wonder if Google is making so many enemies that it will have long-term trouble in spite of its apparent short-term invulnerability.
All I can say is: I can’t wait to see what will happen.
Great post John. I can’t wait either.