"Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence wins championships." - Michael Jordan
Watching Google announce Chromecast (their assault on Apple TV), Nexus 7, gen 2 (their assault on iPad) and Android 4.3 (their assault on iOS) literally the day after Apple announced their quarterly earnings, I was left with a sense of wonder.
What is the right metaphor for understanding the game that Google and Apple are playing to emerge as the kings of the Post PC era? Is it the “Shock and Awe” of war? Is it “Microsoft vs. Apple”? Is it “The Moat”? Is it “Vertical Integration”?
Sure, it’s all of these things, but after ruminating on this a bit, I have a meta-thesis on the game that Google and Apple are playing.
It's professional sports, specifically the NBA Playoffs.
In the NBA Playoffs, each team has a style that they want to play, that leverages their unfair advantages, and exploits the competition's weaknesses, and there are a multitude of 'games within the game,' and adjustments over the course of the series.
So much of winning vs. losing is enforcing your desired style of play on the competition, thereby forcing them to forsake their competitive advantage.
We can argue whether "Open" is better than "Integrated Experience," or whether "Subsidized Pricing" (via Ads or Adjunct Business Models) is Preferred to "Direct Pricing" (i.e., Pricing is a Direct Reflection of the Product).
But, what is absolutely fascinating to watch is one team (Google) trying to **force** the other team (Apple) to abandon or water down their strategy, so as to play Google's game.
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