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

posted on April 9, 2010


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.


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  • http://www.otrtiresupply.com/blog Kurt

    Google should be kept out of the AdMob acquisition. They just keep buying up competition from every single marketplace. Eventually everyone else will be forced out of the arena.

    Privacy issues should be addressed as well, particularly with GOOG’s ability to pinpoint a person’s exact, physical location, through the phone’s GPS or via triangulation.

    Not good.
    .-= Kurt´s last blog ..Talking Tire Stocks – Dead in the Water or Major Recovery? =-.

  • guy

    iAd is NOT a new competitor to Google….Quattro was ALREADY a comeptitor to Admob…Admob was just larger…and Apple is now only implementing ads differently so, I agree with Kurt, acquisition should NOT go thru

  • Pingback: Herdrich named superintendent of Donnellson Water Dept.

  • http://gorumors.com Anand

    I guess it was pretty evident back then too…Apple had locked-in Admob for a 45 day exclusive negotiation period and when it lapsed, Google immediately pounced on the company and paid a massively large sum of money just to keep Admob away from Apple..
    .-= Anand´s last blog ..Microsoft TV Recommendation Engine =-.

  • http://www.animion.com/blog Animion

    There’s no surprise that Google has strong interest about AdMob. I’m iPhone developer and my experiences shows that AdMob is best monetizing solution for free apps. See http://bit.ly/a0m8XZ for more.
    .-= Animion´s last blog ..Best way to monetize free application =-.

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