The things people do for headlines really crack me up. After years of going to battle against each other, bloggers are speculating that Apple and Microsoft might align to take on Google.
I’m not sure what passes for op-ed these days, but it surely has very little to do with educated guesses. There’s a number of reasons why this would never happen, and it starts with the marketing campaign Apple’s been running for the last couple of years. Couple that with the fact that Microsoft has been, mildly put, enraged any time someone shows up with an Apple device to a meeting and you’ve got a recipe for anything but co-operation.
The thing is, battle plans take a while to put together, and they certainly don’t change over night. In a company as big as Microsoft, it’s going to take a while before any form of cooperative sentiment finds its way down the food chain to those at the bottom making daily decisions. It wouldn’t happen over night, and it certainly won’t happen in the near future.
Now what about Apple Inc. ? Sure Microsoft played saviour for Apple, but if we’ve learned anything about Bill Gates these last couple of years it’s that he’s quite the humanitarian and generous person. Now if there’s anything we’ve learned about Mr. Jobs it’s the exact opposite. I wouldn’t doubt for one second that he’d let Microsoft sink, it means that the IBM mentality is finally dying and the Apple way prevailed. That means Jobs was right, and he sure loves being right.
Sure, this is just speculation on my part, but a history teacher once told me that history repeats itself, and that we can learn a lot about the future from history. Clearly a couple of these bloggers need a history lesson or two, or maybe a profiling class or two. People don’t change, and there’s no way a Jobsian Apple Inc. would team up with Microsoft to kneecap Google. Up until a couple months ago there was a likelihood that the complete opposite would occur. With two of it’s board members sharing residency between Google and Apple, many people thought it was a matter of time before they took on Microsoft. Funny how opinions change in such a short amount of time.
Anything to sell a headline or two.
…And that’s my opinion on that.
