It's my life, you're just along for the ride!

Mark your calendars.  Today is a day where we have been treated to the revelation of what is really going on in the battle between the tech giants for market supremacy. To say the least, there is what those in the military call “a target rich environment.” The Internet is abuzz.

Google vs. Apple sounds familiar

Let’s start with the statement by Google CEO Eric Schmidt. Speaking to the tech blog AllThingsDigital at the Nwork 92nd Street Y, Schmidt heated up the blogosphere by saying not only does he expect more than a billion devices around the world to be running his Android software within a year, but he called Google’s battle with Apple a “defining fight.” He went on to add that “We’ve not seen…competitive fights of this scale.” This was short and sweet, but actually a mouthful.

I seem to remember over the years numerous tech industry headlines about battles of titans for world domination. A few that come to mind are:

IBM vs. everyone else in the computer industry which led to antitrust action

Ditto on AT&T vs. everyone in the communications world which led to the breakup of Ma Bell

Microsoft vs. IBM

Microsoft vs. Netscape

HP vs. all other printer makers

You get the picture, as every few years in some market we see these struggles but we have never seen a battle of this scale. That is until we see another one.  And, many of these have been about either some company getting control of the device market, the Internet or both.

Microsoft’s Ballmer chimes in

With a much deserved tip of the hat to TMC CEO Rich Tehrani, if not for his blog I would have missed Microsoft CEO’s recent shareholder letter which seems to have Apple on its mind and Google too. As Tehrani explains, Ballmer attempts to make a case as to why Microsoft is developing certain devices by basically sticking his thumb in the eye of other members of the ecosystem for not producing better products than Microsoft seems to want to run its software on.

My goodness! The arrogance given the Microsoft track record of developing devices from business telephones to set-tops for cable TV to mobile phones and “E”verything in between is (and I will be polite) problematic. Other than the successful Xbox, it is hard to point to a Microsoft hardware success. Indeed, they seem to be much better at extracting fees from Android manufactures like HTC then when literally left to their own devices.

via Apple vs. Google vs. Microsoft: The Next Round in the Battle of the Ecosystems.