Photo: Google

The Internet brought with it a brand new market place, that initially lived parallel with physical retailing of goods, or existed in a space physical goods could not, and, in the most extreme cases, began killing the physical goods and service industry. To this extent, many mega companies were birthed and experienced meteoric growth and success in very short periods of time.

While many businesses would be well pleased with reaching $100 million dollars in annual sales in 20 years, tech giants like Google, Amazon, eBay, Apple Inc. and Microsoft do several billions of dollars in sales annually, and, as a result of necessary growth and expansion, find themselves competing against each other. Below are three of the most interesting technology face-offs with a brief account of how they came to be and where things may go.

Google vs. Apple

The most interesting emerging corporate conflict is between Apple and Google. These friends, turned estranged acquaintances, turned sworn enemies comes as a result of Google playing in a space Apple Inc. feels they have no right to – the mobile phone industry.

Photo: Apple

With Android devices taking on the iPhone, the company found by Steve and Steve showed their intent by advancing into Google’s industry – the mobile advertising market, and by extension, advertising in general. Both these companies do however rely on services, software and hardware provided by the other, so as this web becomes more tangled, what might be the single greatest technology standoff could be unfolding.

Microsoft vs. Amazon vs. Oracle

Larry Ellison of Oracle, whose best man at his wedding was none other than Steve Jobs of Apple, has always had a grudge against Microsoft as a corporation, but now Amazon has emerged as a niggle in an industry Oracle all but owns – enterprise-grade hosted data services. Amazon’s S3 service has raced to the front as the preferred hosting options for web developers who need hosting or cloud computing services, sidestepping both Microsoft’s advances and Oracle’s defense to give the two tech giants much to think about. Microsoft, naturally, being the company they are, have competitors everywhere, but this could very well be one corporate conflict Steve Ballmer and company are not prepared to lose without throwing every available resource at it.

Amazon vs. Apple

Photo: Amazon

Amazon is a content company. Apple is a hardware company. Which means, from corporate aspirations, when looking at the Kindle and iPad, one company wants to sell you digital books via its hardware platform (Kindle), whereas the other wants to use its digital books platform to sell hardware to you. Given desperate publishers sit in the middle of this conflict, neither Apple Inc. nor Amazon is afraid to threaten and woo these publishing companies into siding with their strategies. Furthermore, the CEOs at the helm of these tech giants are considered visionaries in their respective fields, so it goes to reason that the rules of engagement here have certainly been escalated.

One market too many

The problem for tech companies is, though their founding visions and markets may differ widely, markets eventually overlap and fascinating conflicts emerge. Corporate conflict of this kind are often protracted, with clear winners emerging to the detriment of the other companies, but strategic development and technological advancements are all the better for it.