Schmidt

Jobs

Brad Stone and Miguel Helft of The New York Times offer a fascinating read today on the growing feud between Apple's Steve Jobs and Google's Eric Schmidt, with one Silicon Valley investor telling the reporters that the conflict has elevated to "World War III." The key battlefront in this new tech war between one-time allies centers around the mobile phone, with Apple's iPhone in one corner and Google's Android in the other. It also has extended into the M&A front, with both companies competing aggressively for AdMob, and the courtroom, with Apple suing Android-handset maker HTC for patent infringement.

And the story notes that the rivalry between the two companies has risen to such a level that it could spark unusual alliances, namely a partnership between Apple and Microsoft's Bing search engine.

Rumors have circulated that the the longtime rivals are working on a deal to make Bing the default search engine on the iPhone, as well as the soon-to-be-released iPad.

But the core issue in the mobile arena appears to be a core philosophical difference. Stone and Helft write:

Apple believes that devices like smartphones and tablets should have tightly controlled, proprietary standards and that customers should take advantage of services on those gadgets with applications downloaded from Apple’s own App Store.

Google, on the other hand, wants smartphones to have open, nonproprietary platforms so users can freely roam the Web for apps that work on many devices. Google has long feared that rivals like Microsoft or Apple or wireless carriers like Verizon could block access to its services on devices like smartphones, which could soon eclipse computers as the primary gateway to the Web.

That was also the fundamental issue that RealNetworks chairman Rob Glaser addressed in remarks last week in Seattle. The tech executive, a longtime Apple foe, suggested that Apple's closed approach could damage the mobile industry in the long run. And while Glaser praised Android, he said it was not "preordained who is going to win" in the mobile industry.

Interestingly, an early investor in RealNetworks, Mitch Kapor, offered a near identical argument in the Times' piece today.

The founder of Lotus Development compared the Google-Apple tension to the ongoing rivalry between Apple and Microsoft, noting that Google is following in Microsoft's footsteps by trying to work with multiple device makers in the mobile arena. Kapor, like Glaser, suggests that Apple's proprietary approach "tends to choke things in the long term."

The story is a great read, which also gets into the personality conflicts between Schmidt and Jobs.