The Government has offered Australia's three mobile operators, and vividwireless, renewal of their existing spectrum allocated on 15 year licences in the late 90s and early 2000s at set prices, while the Government expects to rake in $3 billion.
Other areas where the companies compete include web browsers (Safari and Chrome), desktop search (Spotlight and Google Desktop), photo software (iPhoto and Picassa), and online services (MobileMe and several Google offerings).
Google provides all of those programs and services for free, while Apple charges for them (in some cases as part of Mac OS X). The one exception would be in web browsers, where both companies provide Windows versions at no charge.
So on the face of it, there is little evidence that the presence of Schmidt and Levinson on both boards has served to reduce competition.
Schmidt reportedly withdraws from board discussions involving the iPhone in order to avoid conflict of interest allegations.
The FTC is said to rarely enforce the restriction on directors in common.
One possibility is that Schmidt could resign from the Apple board and Levinson from either or both, thus making the matter moot.
Or if they and the companies are confident there is no case to answer, they are likely to let the FTC investigation run its course.
David Bass
| ComOps, a leading Australian provider of business software products and services, has won a competitive tender to deploy its Salvus safety, r…
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