Did Google’s Eric Schmidt Quit Apple’s Board Over AdMob Squabble?

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OK, bear with me hear, but I’m going to put some pieces together to explain why Google and Apple went from being great friends, to arch-rivals.

At the time, this looked like a coincidence:

August 3rd, 2009 – Eric Schmidt resigns his position on Apple’s board of directors, citing "conflicts of interest" in some of Apple’s "core businesses."

November 9th, 2009 – Google acquires mobile advertising platform AdMob for a reported $750M.

December 28th, 2009 - Consumer Groups start lobbying the FTC to block the AdMob acquisition on the grounds of decreasing competition in the market.

March 11th, 2010 – The FTC suddenly starts asking Google’s rivals, what they think of the deal.

Yesterday, April 8, 2010 – Apple CEO Steve Jobs let’s the following slip during his Q&A with the press:

"we tried to buy a company called AdMob… but Google snatched it away."

Hmmm. Now it all makes complete sense. Google and Apple both wanted to acquire AdMobs. Google wanted the company bad enough that Schmidt resigned his board seat at Apple. I have no idea if Apple was little voice whispering in the FTC’s ear, but I suspect the company just got a dose of laryngitis, now that iAds is launching to compete with Google.

View full post on Andy Beal’s Marketing Pilgrim

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