It seems to me that in the future, every computing company needs to have a search engine (with maps), a desktop operating system (with office capabilities), and a mobile device, all of which work seamlessly together, but are operable with other company’s offerings should one choose to do that.

Currently, Google has a phone and a search engine, and is dipping its toe into the OS market. It offers online office applications currently, which will be integrated into their upcoming Chrome OS.

Apple has an OS with an office suite (iWork) and a phone, and is rumored to be developing a search engine. They bought a Google maps competitor, which will likely be integrated.

Microsoft has a mobile phone OS that is crappy, and is rumored to be working on their own phone. It wouldn’t surprise me to see them buying RIM or Palm to get the phone in their lineup. Microsoft has a search engine, Bing, which works pretty well, and appears to be the only viable competitor to Google at the current time. And obviously, Microsoft has an OS and office suite.

Until Microsoft and Apple are able to build/buy their mobile phone and search engine respectively, I expect to see them allying against Google for the time being (next 6-18 months). Once they launch their respective phone and search engine, expect a quick but amicable divorce.

Question(s): Where does console gaming and media distribution fit into all of this? Companies like Netflix and Amazon compete with iTunes and the XBox store for movie rentals and the like. And Google is rumored to be offering movies for rent over Youtube soon as well. Is this another component that needs to be offered by a modern computing company? Apple has the AppleTV device, which sucks, and the Mac Mini, which is awesome but not easily connected to a television. Will that change? Does Google need to make a device for the TV? Does that device need to play games? Is Nintendo a takeover target for this reason? I’ve long thought that Apple and Nintendo would make a good fit together. And where do the Playstation and Roku and Boxee Box fit into all of this?

Just looking for ideas here guys.

Tags: Amazon, Apple, Boxee, Computing, Google, iTunes, Microsoft, Netflix, Roku, YouTube

This entry was posted on Friday, January 22nd, 2010 at 10:26 am and is filed under technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.