Mobsters of the Tech world!

Come with me down the rabbit hole filled with theories based on analysis of the unspoken, subtle strikes from the Dons of the big four “crime families”. The big four as I refer to them as for the purpose of this post are: Apple, Microsoft, Google and Facebook.

Lets define these families, taking a closer look at how they make their money. Apple, they make money from both hardware and software but the bulk of their money comes from selling hardware at a high premium. Microsoft on the other hand makes their money through software at a premium that's their "bread and butter" though they make hardware products most notably the Xbox, but their software business rules. Google, search and advertising are their main source of revenue. Facebook will be defined later in this post. 

Google in all its mighty ignorance think they can come into the "pc" market using the strategies of the three pillars of the personal computer space to propel Android into the next age of computing. Pillar one, Linux and its idea of open source bringing all the benefits of such. Pillar two, Microsoft's strategy of having OEMs like HTC, Motorola and Samsung do their bidding in the hardware side. Pillar three, Apple's strategy, making hardware and software, "the nexus project". 

Google is winning but for how long is the question I ask myself. Google's declaration, "We are the new Microsoft" must have sent shock waves through the hearts of the Don's at Apple and Microsoft because they are now gearing up for war! 2013 will be the year of split blood the families are at war! Stick with me it gets fun from here. 

Apple takes them to court. Apple launched a massive litigation campaign on all the major OEMs who provide Android phones. HTC has recently settled, while Samsung and Motorola are still stuck in battle with Apple in the courts of law. Microsoft the other hand have gone about this in a different way, a silent killer approach only perfected by an old veteran. Microsoft has successfully made agreements with all the major OEMs to pay them royalties for a software (Android) that Google offers free. Let's take a moment here; Microsoft makes more money from Android than Google does in that regard. What? It gets better, lets go deeper. 

Enter Facebook, Microsoft invested $240 million dollars into Facebook, future strike set. Apple embraces Facebook after many disagreements most notably with their service "ping". Facebook's now tightly integrated into OSX and iOS. Why is Facebook so important too these two companies? 

When you want to take a monster down, you hit them where it hurts. Facebook passed Google on time spent on a website and total views! Facebook now have over 1 billion active users per month! Why is all this important you may ask? January the 15th, yesterday to be exact, Facebook introduced Graph search, a partnership with Microsoft on a new approach to searching for content. Recollect from above where I mentioned Google's dollar comes from search and advertisement. Facebook is now doing search, they are going after Google's bread and butter. Microsoft's funding this war and Apple is facilitating it, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. 

Who will come out on top? I will never take my eyes off Microsoft, a silent killer moving around the industry. Microsoft currently makes money from an OS it has no part of development wise. They are partnering with Facebook to take away Google's main source of income. The main reason why I would never count Microsoft out however is quite simple, Microsoft wasn't first in the PC space Apple was but they came and took it all. Lets see where all of this ends! 2013 is shaping up to be a fun year. 

Maurice John