What do you think about the Microsoft new ideas for Windows 8?

Apple is going to open a huge Apple Store in Hamburg sometime this summer/fall. Apple remains very secretive about it. The whole building in the prime location "Jungfernstieg" is hidden behind black panels. On Friday however, all of a sudden a huge Windows logo was displayed, making it look like a Microsoft store.

 

Download a template and make your own “Steve Jobs vs. Bill Gates” comic!

 

This is an interesting chart which shows where Microsoft's profit comes from. And make no mistake, Microsoft is still the most profitable software company in the world.

Its profits are still being generated by the same engines that have driven Microsoft for years: Office, Windows, and its server division. (Meanwhile, its entertainment and devices division is only recently profitable again, and its online division is a money pit.)

This is why Google is increasingly focusing on disrupting Microsoft's core businesses, including its Google Docs rival to Office; its Chrome OS rival to Windows; and now Google Buzz, an add-on to Gmail that some have compared most closely to Sharepoint, one of Microsoft's enterprise tools.

When companies start to imitate one another, it's usually either an extreme case of flattery—or war. In the case of Google and Apple, it's both. They are merely 10 miles apart from each other in Silicon Valley and for almost a decade the two have been on good terms. Apparently, those times are now over.

With the Nexus One, Goole enters the Hardware game - threatening Apples iPhone. Apple recently acquired Quattro Wireless - an upstart advertising company that excels at targeting ads to mobile-phone users based on their behavior. With this acquisition Apple not only aims to create completely new mobile ads, apparently, they want to make search on mobile phones obsolete. An attack directed at the heart of Google.

In the next months the Apple-Google battle might get even much rougher. What happens if Apple decides to dump Google as the default search engine on its devices? This would be an obvious move as it would cut Google off from mobile data that could be used to improve its advertising and Android technology. Nevertheless, Apple needs search on the iPhone. This could even go so far that Steve Jobs could cut a deal with - gasp! - Microsoft to make Bing Apple's engine of choice, or even launch its own search engine.

Very interesting. Let's see how this develops.

PS: In case you missed it: Check out a prediction of mobile trends until 2020 - a look into the future of mobile.