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  3. In the 1990s, Microsoft Internet Explorer battled Netscape Navigator in the great Web browser wars. In the 2000s, Google and Yah

In the 1990s, Microsoft Internet Explorer battled Netscape Navigator in the great Web browser wars. In the 2000s, Google and Yah

admin2017-04-20  32
问题     In the 1990s, Microsoft Internet Explorer battled Netscape Navigator in the great Web browser wars. In the 2000s, Google and Yahoo locked horns over Internet search. Today, the latest high-stakes tech conflict is between Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android mobile operating system for supremacy in the smart phone market.
    Each of these clashes defined an era of Internet history. Apple vs. Android is no different. The struggle for Internet advantage is shifting to the mobile realm, and iPhone and Android have surged to the front of the pack with diametrically opposed business models. Neither of these players will be vanquished anytime soon but the company that gains the upper-hand will be best-positioned to take advantage of the massive structural shift from desktop PCs to smart phones and tablets.
    Apple and Google realize how huge the stakes are in this fight. Apple’s late CEO Steve Jobs revolutionized the mobile phone market with the iPhone, and he was furious when Google launched Android, because he was convinced it ripped off features from the iPhone. Google, meanwhile, has poured millions of dollars into developing Android, and billions more bolstering its intellectual property position by buying Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion.
    This "smartphone showdown" is important because Apple and Google are advancing radically different business models to the fight. This is bigger than just a commercial clash between two tech titans. It’s a war between two fundamentally different visions for the future of computing, described in simplistic terms as "closed" vs. "open." Apple’s model is end-to-end control over the iPhone process, from hardware to software to the mobile applications that it must approve for sale in the App Store. Google’s model has been to distribute the Android system for free to the developer community at large, and let a thousand flowers bloom.
    Each company has been successful with its respective strategy: Apple makes $1 billion per month on iPhone sales, and the device is considered the gold standard for smart phone design. Android, meanwhile, generates vastly less revenue per unit sold, but has racked up massive market-share gains, growing to lead the global mobile OS space in just 5 years.
    Speaking at an event in New York City earlier this week, Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt did not mince words describing the intensity of the showdown, and what he characterized as its benefits to consumers. "The Android-Apple platform fight is the defining fight in the industry today," Schmidt said at an event hosted by AllThingsD co-executive editors Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg. "We’ve not seen platform fights at this scale," he added. "The beneficiary is you guys. Prices are dropping rapidly. That’s a wonderful value proposition. "
    This battle may have "wonderful" consequences for consumers, but it hasn’t been pleasant for the combatants. In addition to cutthroat competition in the marketplace, Apple has been slugging it out in courtrooms around the world over intellectual property with Google’s hardware partners. Apple’s global patent offensive against Samsung, HTC, and other Google partners is really a proxy fight against Android.
    Top executives at both Apple and Google insist they would prefer not to engage in such expensive and drawn-out patent litigation, but at least in Apple’s case, the company feels it has no choice but to defend its flagship product. Last spring, Apple CEO Tim Cook declared that he’s "always hated litigation" but said that it’s his job to protect Apple’s inventions. For his part, Schmidt told the New York audience that, "These patent wars are death," and described the patent arms race as "bad for innovation. It eliminates choices. "
    That view was backed up in the latest installment of The New York Times iEconomy series. "The marketplace for new ideas has been corrupted by software patents used as destructive weapons," the story’s authors wrote, noting that last year, for the first time, Apple and Google spent more on patent litigation and intellectual property than on research and development, a striking fact that illustrates how incentives have deviated in the tech industry. Elsewhere in the article, a former Apple executive confirmed that in the case of the company’s 2010 lawsuit against HTC, a key Android partner, "Google was the enemy, the real target. "
    Could Apple and Google finally be growing weary of the patent wars? There are the faintest glimmers of hope. Google CEO Larry Page and Apple’s Cook have been holding back-channel discussions "about a range of intellectual property matters, including the ongoing mobile patent disputes between the companies," Reuters reported. It’s encouraging to see these two tech titans talking, because consumers want to see these firms compete in the marketplace, not bicker in courtrooms. As the battle for smartphone supremacy rages between Apple and Google, may the best products win—not the company with the best patent lawyers.  
Which of the following can NOT explain the importance of the Apple-Google combat for the smartphone market?
选项 A、This combat signals the struggle for Internet advantage is shifting to a new realm.
B、Participants are introducing fundamentally different business types to the combat.
C、Winners in the battle would seize favorable conditions in future tech landscape.
D、Apple and Google have always been at the forefront of tech innovations.
答案D
解析 细节题。根据第二至四段可知，苹果和谷歌的“智能手机对决”是决定当下互联网历史的事件，原因如下：第二段前两句谈到这次对决标志着对互联网的竞争转移到了诸如智能手机和平板电脑的移动领域；第二段第四句谈到在此次竞争中占上风的公司将在今后的行业变革中占据有利位置；第四段前三句谈到苹果和谷歌在此次竞争中引入了明显不同的商业模式，体现了行业发展的两种不同愿景，或将影响整个行业的未来走向。综上所述，[A]、[B]和[C]均解释了此次苹果一谷歌的“智能手机对决”的重要性，故均排除；而[D]‘‘苹果公司和谷歌公司在科技革新中始终走在前列”与第一段描述的事实不符，并且也不是此次对决的重要原因，故选[D]。
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