March 16, 2010

While Google Inc.'s budding rivalry with Apple Inc. has largely been a tight-lipped affair managed through legal and regulatory channels, one of the Internet giant's newest hires isn't being shy about airing grievances.

Tim Bray, a software developer employed until recently at Sun Microsystems Inc., said Monday he has joined Google as a "developer advocate" with a focus on the company's Android operating system. And he wasted no time decrying Apple's vision of the cellphone market and strategy for the iPhone. "It's a sterile Disney-fied walled garden surrounded by sharp-toothed lawyers," Mr. Bray wrote on his personal Web site. "I hate it."

An Apple spokesman didn't respond to a request for comment. Google has long been an important strategic partner for Apple, as a supplier of search, mapping and other services for the iPhone and other Apple products. However, Google's own ambitions for the mobile-phone market have caused the relationship to sour.

Apple recently filed a patent lawsuit against HTC Corp., a prominent maker of phones that support Google's Android mobile software. The lawsuit is widely seen as an indirect attack on Google's business model, which relies on the use of open-source software to develop a variety of devices running Android—some of which resemble the iPhone in design and functionality. In addition, Google and Apple have been at odds over the iPhone's exclusion of the Google Voice application—prompting an inquiry by the Federal Communications Commission.

"Apple apparently thinks you can have the benefits of the Internet while at the same time controlling what programs can be run and what parts of the stack can be accessed and what developers can say to each other," Mr. Bray wrote. "I think they're wrong and see this job as a chance to help prove it."

Mr. Bray noted that he doesn't intend for Google to vet anything on his blog before it publishes. However, he also wrote that Google saw an advanced draft of his post about Apple and the iPhone, "but didn't suggest any changes."

Source:-http://online.wsj.com