A Jobs-less Apple Would Not Need Google

Image via CrunchBase

The notion that Apple (AAPL), in a post-Steve Jobs era, would be driven to merge with Google (GOOG) because they are “rapidly converging” anyway is not only absurd and improbable, but a slight to both companies. Never mind that the creation of a nearly $300 billion behemoth would short circuit regulatory agencies worldwide.

Apple and Google are better off doing business with each other at arm’s length, if for no other reason than to keep their agendas and egos in check. If the past decade has taught us anything, it is that mergers promising synergies beyond inital cost cuts rarely work. The marketplace benefits from two sound and remarkable autonomous competitors.

A long-winded essay about Apple CEO Steve Jobs in the Times of London concludes that a Jobs-less Apple and Google would likely merge based on the pivotal points at which their companies intermingle and compete, such as mobile phones, operating systems, web browsers and applications — united in the common goal of toppling Microsoft (MSFT). In their own right, Google and Apple are about so much more.

I believe they are different enough and competitively significant enough on their own that merging is a pointless consideration that fails to take into account how much more radical digital world change is ahead. The innovation, market savvy and creative disruption that Apple and Google provide as dueling giants are more important than a vain attempt to pool their resources under one roof.

Consolidation in many industries, hastened by the recession, is a normal and necessary winnowing process. Internet, media and technology-related businesses have become too complex and fragmented to be adroitly managed by any unwieldy corporate colossus.

Strategic alliances will be increasingly critical to advancing enterprise with the least resistance. The time of simplistic 2 + 2 = 5 value creation formulas is passed. Apple and Google already get that.

Disclosure: Author does not directly own media or internet stocks.

Comments

[mollytjm:]

i agree...i'd like to keep them as competitors so we keep the innovation at a very high level. Jobs doesn't design everything or produce all the new ideas, the people who work at Apple do. He made a company that is so good, it will be fine without him. And i'm sure Google isn't ready to be swallowed up either...they're not Yahoo.

Aug 19 10:45 AM

[Neil Anderson:]

Wouldn't work ... Apple doesn't believe in a free lunch.

Aug 19 11:00 AM

[jack dee:]

wouldn't matter they would be allowed and so the point is moot.

Aug 19 11:56 AM

[tedstr:]

Everyone forgets that Google is a (new kind of) media company not a tech company and it will become more so in the years ahead. It makes money by selling advertsing and has come up short on virtually every other venture it has tried. It clearly has an incredible foundation in its search algorithyms and web index but even enterprise search, a tiertiary market for them at best, is a weak sister.

I can think of only one other example where media hardware and media publishing have combined and been successful, NBC/RCA.

CBS tried owning TV manufacturing and marketing in the early years and failed badly. RCA did nicely with radio sets in the early years of raqdio but never actually did real well in marketing TVs and was only in the hardware business because they invented it, but mostly made money by licensing their color TV process to others. They actually had a better long term business in selling professional gear to the industry.

MSFT continues to try and fail at being both a tech company and a software company.

Googel is a one trick pony, albeit a very large and successful one, but they would do well to stay out of the software and hardware business. Apple should learn from MSFT and stay out of the web publishing/advertising business.

Being a news and information portal supported by advertising is a way different business than making ipods or PCs

Aug 20 09:27 AM

[Cali-arch:]

I agree...a merger woudn't really make any sense, as they are essentially competitors OS, browsers, and mobile OS. Apple is an integrated hardware/ software company, whereas google is primarily a web serach/ad company.

Besides, google's philosophy is to produce low cost open source tools for web users and generate revenue on the ad side...conversely, Apple designs highly integrated hardware/ software products for profit on the retail side...

Aug 20 03:14 PM

[Rokjok777:]

"Microsoft continues to try and fail at being both a tech company and a software company"

Hello?

I can think of a few thousand software and tech companies that would envy the revenue stream of this "failure" company...


On Aug 20 09:27 AM tedstr wrote:

> Everyone forgets that Google is a (new kind of) media company not
> a tech company and it will become more so in the years ahead. It
> makes money by selling advertsing and has come up short on virtually
> every other venture it has tried. It clearly has an incredible foundation
> in its search algorithyms and web index but even enterprise search,
> a tiertiary market for them at best, is a weak sister.
>
> I can think of only one other example where media hardware and media
> publishing have combined and been successful, NBC/RCA.
>
> CBS tried owning TV manufacturing and marketing in the early years
> and failed badly. RCA did nicely with radio sets in the early years
> of raqdio but never actually did real well in marketing TVs and was
> only in the hardware business because they invented it, but mostly
> made money by licensing their color TV process to others. They actually
> had a better long term business in selling professional gear to the
> industry.
>
> MSFT continues to try and fail at being both a tech company and a
> software company.
>
> Googel is a one trick pony, albeit a very large and successful one,
> but they would do well to stay out of the software and hardware business.
> Apple should learn from MSFT and stay out of the web publishing/advertising
> business.
>
> Being a news and information portal supported by advertising is a
> way different business than making ipods or PCs

Aug 21 03:53 AM