GREAT CORPORATE RIVALRIES IN 2009

There are a few things that i like more than corporate battles. In 2009 there are a few corporate streetfights that i have been keenly following. Here they are:

GOOGLE vs FACEBOOK vs MICROSOFT vs APPLE

Microsoft and Apple started this battle back in the 1970s. Bill Gates (19yrs at the time) and Paul Allen (22) founded Microsoft in 1975 while at the same time Apple, under Steve Jobs was taking off. Microsoft started selling software languages like BASIC, COBOL, FORTRAN, PASCAL etc to the many computer companies at the time. In the early 1980s Microsoft was making software for Apple. . The struggle started in 1986 when Microsoft introduced Windows that had a large resemblance to the Apple Macintosh OS in the use of a mouse and icons. Apparently when Microsoft was designing software fo Apple Bill advised Jobs to licence their software but the hardware oriented company ignored the suggestion. Gates, seeing an opportunity took it and ran.

Apple threatened to sue Microsoft for stealing their ideas and inturn Microsoft threatened to withhold software that Apple desperately needed for their computers. Microsoft won this battle.

This has been going on up to date but Microsoft still has a very large market share  than Apple. Apple computers are still better looking and sleeker and their touchscreen computers have a greater impression on the market. I mean look at the apple ipod touch and their touchscreen computers.

Microsoft has being trying to get into the touchscreen niche by introducing the Microsoft Surface but its insanely high prices may have a large impact on sales

This is where google comes in. Read here about the history of google. Google search engine is by far the most popular in the world. Only recently Microsoft introduced  BING SEARCH as their new search engine thereby going head to head with google.(there is no doubt that bing looks good but few people are switching default search engines) Google also introduced  google chrome a light weight browser to replace internet explorer(which i have done btw). At the moment google is developing google chrome operating system, alight weight OS  that is designed primarily for netbooks….another blow for microsoft. Apple is not being knocked out  here as it introduced apple safari, a really fast browser with a really nice interface.

Facebook was formed like five years ago by a harvard dropout Mark Zuckerberg, as a social networking site but the startup has grown in leaps and bounds and in 2009 has a over 200 million users. This has caused sleepless nights for the google people as it is quit a rival. Facebook is on of  the few sites where people use their real names instead of assumed one like everywhere else on the web(you know those usernames you use…). An herein lies the problem. Facebook wants to reinvent  web browsing as a personalized experience than that offered by Google. More people are using Facebook search than Google search to look things up. Like instead off googling eating places people are asking their friends on Facebook.

Microsoft muscled into this war for internet domination but investing $240 million after Mark refused to sell the company to google and yahoo and wh knows who else. Needless to say this did not go well with the google people. Here is a great article about the Google- Facebook war.

To retaliate Google is now developing Google wave, an application that will virtually work in real time and revolutionize the way the internet is used. Here is an article i wrote about Google wave

The next post will be a continuation of the corporate wars in other industries.