Keith Watanabe * NET 2.0

with the youtube acquisition, one thing came to mind for me: google's enemies are clearly M$ and big media. they want to remove the middle man in the way that both of those businesses had done in monopolizing and destroying their markets. of course, this means that google would also potentially become a monopoly by default, but whether or not they intend to kill their competitors in the same manner is another story entirely. with this vision in mind, i am going to make a bold prediction: Apple and Google will either merge or one will buy the other out. I am betting on Google purchasing Apple. the strategic alliance would make Google/Apple the strongest platform around. both companies have similar visions and similar enemies. culturally, they are similar. both companies have leaders who are visionaries that go beyond straight forward, monopolizing businesses, but towards a lifestyle. in terms of benefits here's what they have to offer each other: 1) google offers the ultimate desktop platform by removing all business related applications to the web 2) the browser becomes 80% of the desktop's applications. more integration will occur as Safari will be dropped in favor of Camino. the Mozilla code base will increase in importance to potentially 50-60% of the market 3) all online media will be handled through google. itunes and youtube will be portal sites, with one being for the mobile (i.e. ipod) platform and the other for the webtop platform and potentially the SetTop platform 4) apple will provide through Disney and Pixar greater media (i.e. movie) relations to Google. Disney and Pixar will also become freely searchable as Apple and Google increase pressure on Disney through Pixar to open their libraries and distribute their content in a more friendly manner 5) apple will become a bigger player in the desktop market with Google helping to decrease cost by subsidizing them. Macs running on Intel hardware will drop to near PC level prices 6) OS X will become the OS of choice as stability from BSD, the lack of viruses and the support from Google will increase it's viability in the market. with all office applications being offered for free through Google, no one will ever need to purchase another M$ office suite again 7) youtube will become the next generation for creating new stars, eliminating the Reality TV concept. without good writers, Hollywood will slowly rot away as people move towards SetTops and youtube television 8) Google will attempt to purchase a site that will create their own promotional/publishing house for artists of all kinds. the traditional middle man agencies will slowly be eliminated as artists are able to promote themselves and become rewarded (hmmm...wonder what site that might be????? :p) in turn, M$ will grow rapidly scared and attempt to initially compete with their MSN site. however, after many failures (e.g. live.com), they'll eventually realize that they are not fit for the net. in turn, they'll make an overpriced buyout offer to Yahoo, who will take it (because Terry Semel is a former hollywood, selfish, visionless, greedy fuck). when integration grows cumbersome, M$/Yahoo will become like the AOL/Time Warner merger, stagnate, lose massive business for lack of focus, and eventually attempt to offload the dead weight parts. to me, M$ should focus on buying ebay. ebay has more strategic and profitable business lines. but having M$ control things like paypal, skype, etc. is a scary thought. but then again that's why i think it's a good idea (for them) :p