Lets face the facts… Google Plus is a horrible idea. Google’s pushing Plus like it was a toxic asset it needs to unload quick; when you signup for Gmail its there, when you try and search for something it’s there. The biggest problem with Plus isn’t the product which in many ways is innovative and very well designed… it’s that it solves a problem that doesn’t exist. I and literally everyone else has no reason to use Google Plus over my already established and far more supported Facebook or Twitter account. But the interesting aspect of Plus is how much it highlights the problems Google faces as well as their opportunities that they seem to not be grasping at the moment.

Enter Bing

Bing’s new design which focuses on Facebook and Twitter (what a concept?!?) shows that for the first time in a long time Microsoft gets the web. It understands what people want out of search. Google, the search company… doesn’t.  Microsoft also gets the home. And by the home I mean the living room. Countless companies have tried brining the web to the living room, WebTV which was a Microsoft product from way back, Google TV and even the AppleTV to a more limited degree. However, the winner is Microsoft hands down with the Xbox and voice search via Kinect and Bing. Microsoft is killing the consumer entertainment place. *Disclaimer – Windows Phone is an entirely different story of too little too late in an already crowded space*

Exit Microsoft

The oddest thing about this entire transformation seems to be that Google really has the opportunity to steal away Microsofts core enterprise business. With Google Docs now Drive and of course Gmail and Google Calendar they already have a fantastic very well integrated, easy to use, in the cloud enterprise offering. Take Google + and make it into a Yammer competitor and you’ve just killed Sharepoint. Google has all the ingredients for a fantastic enterprise offering but not a consumer offering.

Sitting on the fence Apple

While productivity has never really been Apple’s fortay, it seems like Apple has the necessary technology in place for some great collaborative products but its just waiting. iWork across the desktop, iPad, and iPhone is fantastic yet it lacks any real collaborative features like Google Docs. And as always the AppleTV still seems to be a side project, an experiment for them. Dont get me wrong the AppleTV does so many things right, the iCloud Movie and TV library as well as Music library is brilliant and works fantastically but they could do so much more. I think Apple is the real wild card here. Apple could announce some live collaborative editing features powered by iCloud easily across their platforms, it would be huge. The same applies for the AppleTV it is so overdue for apps; except not the Apps you’re thinking about. Apple could do some serious damage to the cable operators by offering networks and channels the ability to sell their content as a subscription directly to consumers. Instead of paying 100+ for 900 channels you wont watch why not pay say 4.99 per “app/channel” you do want. It removes the middle man for the channel operators and if Apple gets off its high horse and makes up with Facebook it could offer an unprecedented level of advertising targeting for content providers.