The digital media war: As Apple and Google battle, users win
There are rumblings of a digital media war on the horizon as two of Silicon Valley's - er, the world's - most powerful companies appear to be headed for a digital showdown.
CNET's Greg Sandoval offers this great read about the chess moves that the two companies are making as each sets its sights on the holy grail of digital media - a cloud-based shelf where collections of music and movies and probably photos, too, will be housed for streaming playback anywhere there's a Web connection, including a mobile phone or a fancy new tablet.
Apple certainly has the lead here with its popular line of iPod and iPhone - and soon the iPad - devices to keep people engaged with and entertained by their digital media libraries. But they want to make sure you have plenty of storage to buy buy buy even more digital content - so they're taking a play out of the Google playback to push the cloud. First, it was music. Now, it's movies.
Things are changing quickly in the online media world. Walmart's recent purchase of Vudu puts the retail giant - which is also a big mover of Hollywood DVDs - into the streaming digital world. Hollywood could get stuck between a rock and a hard place if they're forced to choose between Walmart and Apple. The question is: Would Apple be willing to open its online digital media shelf to non-Apple devices? Remember: that would also include Web-enabled TV sets - a market that Apple COO Tim Cook recently said Apple has no plans to get into that business and one that's likely to be a big deal for a company like Walmart.
Google, which is also making some moves toward content in the cloud, is big on multi-platform and open source these days and the idea of being able to stream content to all devices - instead of just those behind the proprietary iWall - is something that the content providers, as well as consumers, could prefer.
Android is a good example of Google's multi-faceted approach - several models, several manufacturers, several carriers. And it seems to be working - at least for now. But Android is also a thorn in the side of Apple and this week, Apple filed a patent-violation lawsuit against Android phone maker HTC - a move that colleague Larry Dignan says could have an instant chilling effect on Android's potential to grow.
Like a nice game of chess, it will take a while before a winner of the game can be declared. And there are sure to be some more strategic moves along the way.
The best thing about this game of chess is that, with every move, the players are trying to out-do each other to make themselves look more appealing to end-users. In reality, their game of chess makes winners out of those users - people like us.
Also see: How much will Apple's suit against HTC affect Android's momentum? [podcast]