The Brewing Battle Between Apple, Google And Microsoft

In the world of famous threesomes there’s Larry, Moe and Curly; The Three Musketeers; Paris Hilton, Britney Spears and Madonna. But the battle for media will be fought by these three: Apple, Google and Microsoft.

All three companies are engaged in multiple battlefront wars with each other: search, software, hardware, services.

Apple’s banning of the Google Voice app from the iTunes store is just the opening shot in a lengthy decade battle ahead for control of the world’s communication and media flow.

What kind of battle will it be? Understanding where each company is at will help understand what’s at stake and who is winning so far.

I ran some numbers on what each of the company has in terms of users for its various offerings, from music to phones to Web, and it showed some interesting results: the battle royale that I see coming is between Apple and Google over which controls the user across multiple digital avenues. Why Apple and Google? Apple has the lead if we look at each platform. Google has the edge in search, a huge onramp to multiple end user services that it doesn’t yet provide as it steers users to other sites.

Microsoft clearly dominates in operating systems with a global share that Apple and Google don’t seem likely to touch anytime soon. However, given the government restrictions on Windows it clearly has hampered its growth into new markets such as search, music, and other new areas. That said, Windows Mobile had impressive numbers but looks like it’s losing ground as Apple’s iPhone gains.

Apple’s hardware “ecosystem” of iPods, iPhones is the biggest threat to Google. These devices feed Apple growth and network services (iTunes, Safari, MobileMe, etc.). This is the main reason Google is trying to get a foothold with its own mobile software effort, Android. Reports say Android-powered phones have sold 1.5 million units. Not big in the iPhone sales gauge. But somewhat notable. The biggest threat to Google, however, is that Apple is probably the only company in the world perceived as “cooler” than Google. Apple’s game changing moves in music and phones are not easy to duplicate. Just ask Palm Pre or Microsoft Zune. Cool is elusive.

In a perfect world for Microsoft it would be allowed to bundle anything into Windows and both Apple and Google would have a much more difficult job of gaining market share. However, as software becomes more “service” than a installed item, this advantage would likely have faded over time anyway. It’s ironic that much of Google’s employees came from Netscape, which Microsoft soundly defeated in the software market. This time around, though, there is no software, it’s all Web services, server farms, networked information distributed. Controlled by the end user.

There are other threats to the above three, the biggest is facebook with over 200 million global users. But it remains a long shot to unseat any of the above for multiple reasons.

About 5 years ago I said Apple was the new Sony and Pixar was the new Disney (both ran by Steve Jobs). Today Pixar is owned by Disney and Apple is the undisputed king of consumer electronic media from music, TV, movies, apps and more it delivers. Why else did Amazon launch its own ebook reader, the kindle? Because Apple’s iPods in a few moves could become the leader in ereaders overnight — same as music.

Who wins the battle above? I think Apple currently has the edge with its 32 years of being in business, making mistakes (some big like helping Microsoft early on), and its ups and downs with products and CEOs. Experience and making cool new products keeps consumers buying (look at Apple’s latest balance sheet).

Microsoft will have to accelerate its growth into consumer-facing services and acquire many new services to make this happen. Not Yahoo but Twitter, Facebook.

Google will have to hire people from Apple to help it figure out better consumer experiences. Look at Orkut, still has problems and server hiccups all these years later. Google Base didn’t beat Craigslist. Google Docs isn’t dethroning Office. Even Android sounds more like a tech solution than a consumer one.