Google vs. Apple Battle Gets Personal

• There are two types of people in the mobile world--software people and cell phone people. Software people tend to get quite upset when people talk about Apple using patents to block innovation. There is a pretty well established view that software patents stifle innovation. I am a wireless technology guy. On the wireless technology side, people are a little more used to difficult patent battles and how personal they can get. A patent lawsuit is almost like a love tap and wireless tech companies. Take a look at the legal department at Qualcomm or Nokia versus your average IT company.
• Very early on during the GSM vs. CDMA standard battles in the United States, the battles often got quite personal between CDMA and GSM. In the end, I think GSM ended up being the better choice, particularly as 3G and 4G wireless stadandards have played out, particularly in the view of the higher cost curve for CDMA phones and handsets (the subsidies of which add up to billions).
• I've got a bit of an unpopular view on this next point. Apple deserves at least some patent protection for the truly new parts of multi touch. How much of multi touch is "obvious" versus truly innovative? Personally I wish our patents system gave more distinction for new innovation, versus older ideas just reapplied elsewhere to to new medium.
• However, if you look at wireless cell innovation, the market was going nowhere slow until Apple came along. They changed the market and busted it wide open and a lot of that was because of multi touch. What good is a patent system if they are not rewarded somehow for this? They gave new life to a dying industry and they deserve credit.
• Google should find ways to innovate even further beyond what Apple has done to make the experience even better without infringing on Apple's patents. Google has a huge advantage with an open architecture.
• Closed architectures always do well during periods of rapid technology change---open platforms like Google's win in the end. Apple is pushing it's bet even further with the IPad which uses the closed architecture, unlike the computers it sells. Ultimately this is a recast of the battle over openness and control between Apple and Microsoft in the 1990s.
• Some of the things Apple and others get patents for however, I think are obvious applications of prior art and principles and don't deserve any patent protection at all and only serve to stifle competition and innovation. A goal of any decent patent system is to reward inventors with royalties in exchange for sharing their art--not to stifle innovation.
• Some of the commentary in the article looks like the reporter taking liberties to inflame an already competitive battle. For example--"One well-connected Silicon Valley investor, who did not want to be identified talking about the Google-Apple feud, says he is stunned by the level of rancor he’s witnessed." This seems a bit contrived. What level of rancor? What was so stunning about it? What context?

While the discord between Apple and Google is in part philosophical and involves enormous financial stakes, the battle also has deeply personal overtones and echoes the ego-fueled fisticuffs that have long characterized technology industry feuds. (Think Intelvs. A.M.D., Microsoft vs. everybody, and so on.)

Yet according to interviews with two dozen industry watchers, Silicon Valley investors and current and former employees at both companies — most of whom requested anonymity to protect their jobs or business relationships — the clash between Mr. Schmidt and Mr. Jobs offers an unusually vivid display of enmity and ambition.

At the heart of their dispute is a sense of betrayal: Mr. Jobs believes that Google violated the alliance between the companies by producing cellphones that physically, technologically and spiritually resembled the iPhone. In short, he feels that his former friends at Google picked his pocket.

“We did not enter the search business. They entered the phone business,” Mr. Jobs told Apple employees during an all-hands meeting shortly after the public introduction of theiPad in January, according to two employees who were there and heard the presentation. “Make no mistake: Google wants to kill the iPhone. We won’t let them.”

One of these employees said Mr. Jobs returned to the topic of Google several times in the session and even disparaged its slogan “Don’t be evil” with an expletive, which drew thunderous applause from his underlings.

Apple declined to comment for this article. Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google’s co-founders, have openly expressed admiration for Mr. Jobs, and Google says it isn’t at war with its former ally. “Apple is a valued partner, and we have great respect for everything they have done for technology for more than 30 years,” says Jill Hazelbaker, a Google spokeswoman.

In a statement, Mr. Schmidt concurred. “I continue to believe, as many do, that Steve Jobs is the best C.E.O. in the world today, and I admire Apple and Steve enormously,” he wrote.

Despite such sentiments, the tech world at large is watching the battle between Apple and Google with shock and awe.

“I’m sure it is going to get uglier,” says David B. Yoffie, a professor at Harvard Business School who has studied the tech industry for decades. “To beat Apple, Google is going to have to be very aggressive. If they are successful, it will put price pressure on Apple and the iPhone.”