Earlier this week in an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek Google Inc’s (NASDAQ:GOOG) current CEO Larry Page said that Steve Job’s hatred for Google’s Android operating system was all really for show. Page said that Jobs used his public hatred of Android as a motivational technique for his team and a marketing technique to build the ire of fan boys. Walter Isaacson, biographer to the late Jobs, came out on Wednesday panning the comments made by Page and reiterating Job’s hatred for the system explaining it was a real and burning desire of Apple Inc.’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) former CEO to see Android destroyed. Isaacson said that Jobs hated Google’s operating system as a knockoff of iOS and vowed its destruction.
Jobs famously said he would spend his dying breath wiping Android’s existence from the face of mobile operating systems history. In order to achieve this Apple lawyered up and started suing companies who used the Android operating system rather than going after Google itself. The most famous of these battles is with Samsung, a company that saw its Galaxy Tab removed from sale in several countries after international court battles with Apple over the product’s design. Apple also sued HTC and Motorola in a bid to destroy the company’s mobile operations by obstructing them from selling their products. Apple from there kicked off a series of nasty patent disputes between companies all over the tech sector and resulted in the true advent of the patent troll. #as those court cases drag out and more and more less credible cases, such as the dispute between Facebook and Yahoo, come to court it is a wonder whether or not Jobs foresaw what would come to pass from his hatred.
Either way it is difficult to know who to believe on Jobs’ real attitude to Android, Isaacson and Page both have something to gain by making these statements now and creating more furor in the war between the two. Page’s assertion that Jobs simply sought to rally the troops could have been a sly wink at his true motives in divulging his thoughts on Jobs’ attitudes. Whichever is true it won’t affect Apple’s share price the company hit over its 52 week high again today recording $634.66 at one point earlier. With sales of its products doing better than expected and the company’s forecasts constantly being revised upwards it is unlear why anyone is really looking to Google for comment on the company’s success.
