Some of today’s technological and economical trends culminate in the battle between Apple, Google, Amazon, Facebook, Samsung and some of the other well known tech giants. I have been following this “Clash of the Tech Titans” for a long while where it proves a pass-time challenge to interpret their strategies. I always considered Apple to be the most difficult to get a grip on and then moving down the list to Samsung being the easiest. Conventional truths just do not seem to apply to Apple. But also Google and Amazon have business models and strategic positions that defy conventional views and are highly intriguing. In a earlier post I already indicated that there are no easy, simple explanations.

Just after I flipped a NYtimes article on Google buying a quantum computer to the Red Planet Dust magazine at Flipboard today I ran into an account of the Larry Page keynote at the Google I/O Conference from which I used a quote to update an older post. I realised with a shock that my focus has been slowly but surely shifting from Apple to Google as the centre of gravity of my attention. If I look through the posts on Red Planet Dust Blog and the additional articles I have flipped at Flipboard the amount of references to Google must be out running Apple’s 10:1!

Thinking it over, I realised that my preoccupation with “collaborability” is skewing my interest to topics that deal with the changes we are all part off and that will influence how we (implicitly) collaborate. Apple makes nice products for individuals who can use these to reach out to others, they have contributed to the interconnected world big time. But they are apparently hardly involved in the stuff that will move the next bounderies. Google is – next to the “mundane” stuff if you can call mobile operating systems so – also creating stuff that has the potential to really shift boundaries. Just have a look at some of the related posts here at Red Planet Dust:

“Robosourcing: software deciding what we think, how we act, when we do and where we are”
What Google Graph will be to people, big data will be to companies
Google Graph: The Nature Of Man Is Changing
The machine is taking over, humans are lending them a hand

With the 6 mega trends from Al Gore’s The Future in the back of my mind I see Google as a company pursuing to push the technical borders relentlessly. How they will be able – or even allowed to – to monetise these efforts is an other matter, the potential consequences for society are huge. I do not see Google as the only company working on these matters in isolation, they are just a focal point of them and illustrate in real time what capabilities are created today.

Disclaimer:
My interest in understanding the strategies of these companies is not related to my preferences for there services:

  1. My basic attitude to Apple’s services and products has remained very positive, even though Apple has become pretty middle of the road in many aspects and much is still to be desired. I turned to Apple years ago after having my full share of bad experiences with Microsoft Windows at the PC level and a total waste of money on a Windows CE powered phone after I heavily used Nokia communicators before; what a crap.
  2. My attitude towards Google’s Services and products has remained pretty negative, trying to evade them as much as I can… I just feel horribly exposed in Google’s vicinity. Even Eric Schmidt now admits that it would have been better if there were a delete button on the internet… (Via The Verge) 
    [Update 17-05-2013: Mr. John Gruber via Daring Fireball expresses my feeling on Google splendidly]
  3. I regularly, but not to often, buy stuff (mostly books) at Amazon (With a background in wholesale I find this a very intriguing company!)
  4. Facebook: no interest…
  5. Samsung: no need for a TV, I do not like huge mobiles, and I am pretty pleased with what I have and how it integrates with the rest of the stuff I have. So I am no potential customer for them at the moment.