Roger Fingas
Two of Apple's chief rivals, Google and Microsoft, on Friday announced a mutual agreement to drop regulatory complaints against each other around the world, further promising to try and settle any disputes themselves before using governments as a weapon.
"Microsoft has agreed to withdraw its regulatory complaints against Google, reflecting our changing legal priorities," a Microsoft spokesperson said in a statement obtained by Re/code. Google made a similar comment, suggesting it would compete on the merit of its products.
Microsoft added that it isn't taking a position on the European Commission's antitrust charges against Google, which have accused it of hampering competition in some of its Android licensing terms. Microsoft was once a member of FairSearch and ICOMP, two groups that filed antitrust complaints against Google, but is now out of both organizations.
The switch in policies may be attributable to Google and Microsoft's latest leaders, Sundar Pichai and Satya Nadella, who appear to have adopted a more friendly stance than their predecessors. Microsoft in particular has adopted a multi-platform strategy, including developing more apps for iOS, Android, and Mac, not just Windows devices.
In September 2015 the two companies halted 20 patent lawsuits against each other in the U.S. and Germany, among them Motorola-related disputes.
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11 Comments
Microsoft is probably happy to keep getting all those Android royalty cheques from all those OEMs. The ones that actually make them money, as opposed to "regulatory complaints".
I'd guess that both have bigger fish to fry, and market issues that affect both of them to deal with. Duking it out with each other was no longer beneficial to either one. FWIW I don't think Apple has any interest now (if they ever did) in rocking the regulatory boat either. All three big US techs have some similar and even overlapping issues to deal with outside of their home base. What affects one is increasingly affecting the others.
Both companies are headed into decline. Microsoft still has office as a stable source of revenue, but Windows is headed toward irrelevance. Google's moonshot projects are all costing huge sums of cash and providing negative returns while Facebook continues to develop a much better and more robust advertising model.
If Apple can get their act together and provide unique content for iTunes while building out their own cloud services, they can potentially grow much more. Apple is now at the fore front of technology. Samsung and LG are leaders in certain aspects of building hardware, but Apple has access to them.
If Samsung and LG decided to collaborate, they could drop Android and develop Tizen into a better OS. Since those two make the best hardware, they could drive the adoption of an alternative mobile OS.
Neither MSFT nor Google are proficient in building hardware and both are going to find themselves out competed by those that do. It's already happening.
The perfect collaboration would be Google and Apple IMHO. Google appears strongest and has expertise in areas where Apple doesn't and vice-versa. If only regulators would let 'em. . .
Of course that's a non-starter.
At what point is that collision? I mean this half-joking, but making plans on how to divide the world up so neither party suffers is a little questionable. I guess each company can say we won't say anything about you, you don't say anything about me. But anything beyond that is a little odd if indeed the other company is actually causing harm to your company in some way.