Apple/Google Ties Severed: Levinson Resigns from Google Board
Google has just announced that Dr. Arthur Levinson, former CEO of Gentech, has resigned from Google’s board of directors. Said Google CEO, Dr. Eric Schmidt:
“Art has been a key part of Google’s success these past five years, offering unvarnished advice and vital counsel on every big issue and opportunity Google has faced. Though he leaves as a member of our Board, Art will always have a special place at Google.”
Previously, Apple and Google shared two board members, with Schmidt resigning back on August 3, and now Levinson, they share a grand total of zero. Since both companies were facing increased FTC scrutiny due to interlocked directorships, this will no doubt reduce that pressure. Whether or not it reduces the pressure between Apple and Google over issues like Google Voice not yet being accepted into the App Store, and Google increasingly moving into Apple businesses with Android and Cloud OS, remain to be seen.
Levinson remains on the Apple board.
October 12th, 2009 at 9:36 am
With Google going after Apple with Android and Apple going after Google maps this trend will only continue. Does Apple dislike Google more than Microsoft yet?????
October 12th, 2009 at 11:23 am
2nd… *** YA..
October 12th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
I think its clear that Apple FEARS Google.
It was a marriage of necessity when the iPhone was starting out, as Apple needed many of the things Google already had and Google was willing to supply them for next to nothing betting on the advertising revenue.
So Google gave Apple the Maps, but earned no revenue from it.
(There is the fiction, popular among iPhone fans that Apple wrote the Maps App. This is alleged because it was delivered with the OS, but there is precious little evidence that it was actually WRITTEN by Apple, and if it is, all they did was put a thin Safari wrapper around normal Google Maps delivery. As evidence to this, note that the day Google announced Traffic on Maps it arrived on the iPhone. The day Google added advertising to Maps it appeared on the iPhone. (See http://www.9to5mac.com/Adsense-in-iphone-maps ).
Now Apple seems to disapprove of this, and is laying the groundwork for a Maps divorce. (Which will be a fatal mistake, because Google buys its map data from ALL the big sources, Navteq, TeleAtlas, Digital Globe, TeraMetrics, GeoEye, etc. Apple’s pathetic back-pocket mapping company can’t compete).
But, having said that, I wouldn’t put too much into this separation other than the SEC does not like to see interlocking directorates in companies that are in closely related categories. Its not unusual to see board members as officers or board members for multiple companies, because the talent pool is not as big as you might imagine.
October 13th, 2009 at 9:13 am
Just a few updates re: mapping divorce. As of last week, Google ended its use of Tele Atlas data in the U.S. and began using “its own” data. (Copyright: Google). Also, the mapping company that Apple “bought,” Placebase, was not a data company, but a software company. Now, I’m sure the tools could be crafted to crowdsource data (as Google and OpenStreetMap do) but I’m not sure at all that’s what Apple has in mind.