Here’s a casual narrative of some Google Mac converts who go to visit Apple’s Cupertino campus and coincidentally get buzzed by Steve Jobs and Jonathan Ive in Apple’s cafeteria. That had to be fairly cool.
The best part:
When you start work at Google, you get to choose whether you want a Mac, Windows, or Linux computer. For many new employees who have never used a Mac (or who haven’t used one for a long time), this choice represents a chance to try living in Mac OS X. Google provides a supportive environment for users of various operating systems, so newbie Mac users can count on something of a comfort zone. And, just as elsewhere in the world, new Mac users at Google are often won over by Apple’s excellent combination of hardware and software.
Interesting that a technology company offers its employees a choice of computing platform for their personal machine. Where I work, you’d get the stinkeye big time if you asked for a Mac or Ubuntu for your machine. I suppose that’s a luxury that working at a web company affords: the platform, ideally, should be inconsequential. Well-designed web technology is agnostic to all but the browser and what it can/cannot support.
Worth a read, if only for their account of the Jobs/Ive sighting.
[via Internet Nexus]
Technorati Tags: google, apple, osx, mac, linux, windows, steve-jobs
2 responses so far ↓
Drew // February 27, 2007 at 7:36 pm
I think Google and Apple need to team up and take on Microsoft/Yahoo and then, the world.
Wait…is that already happening?
Bunson // February 27, 2007 at 9:59 pm
Apple and Google are systematically chipping away at Microsoft from every angle. If they are not consciously working in concert they have a good understanding of the other’s battle plan and factor that into their own strategy. As far as Yahoo, I thought Apple had a tie in with them related to the iPhone and the Google boys have some ties to Yahoo, I’d venture to guess that any inflammatory remarks between Google and Yahoo are choreographed for Wall Street analysts. Yahoo seems happy to continue to exist and ride on Google’s coat tails by cashing in on markets created by Google.
That being said, Jeff you mentioned you went to UofM, I assume for computer science. I’m a PhD candidate in my second year at the Carlson School, (Minnesota), concentrating in Strategic Management & Organization. So here is my proposition, can you put me in contact with any of Page’s former professors? I’d like to write a case directly related to the Apple/Google strategy and seeming implosion of Ballmer. We have a contact at Apple so we’re working that relationship, just looking for the ice breaker at Google. Any way you can help your Big 10 Brethren, (it’s not football).