自从谷歌(Google)提出以32亿美元收购托尼•法戴尔的智能家居公司Nest Labs以来的一周里，外界做出了许多褒贬不一的评论。

    在转向WiFi无线连接的家用电器之前，法戴尔最出名的身份是苹果（Apple）iPod部门的主管。因此，上周的新闻自然引发了一场有关苹果和谷歌这两家公司各自的核心是什么的讨论。

    媒体援引最多的评论很可能是最没有经过仔细考虑的。史蒂夫•乔布斯的传记作者沃尔特•艾萨克森周四上午在消费者新闻与财经电视频道（CNBC）受邀对上周发生的两起重大新闻事件发表意见，也就是中国移动版iPhone正式上市以及谷歌收购Nest。他当时随口说道：“如今世界上最伟大的创新并不是来自于苹果，而是来自于谷歌。”这种观点显然不对苹果狂热爱好者的胃口。专注于苹果公司的新闻网站MacDailyNews发布的新闻标题写道：“史蒂夫•乔布斯乏味传记的抄写员认为谷歌比苹果更具创新精神，因为谷歌收购了一家温度调节器公司。”

    上周五，在意外技术播客网站（Accidental Tech Podcast）上，约翰•斯拉库萨提出了可能是最具大灾变意味的看法。他说，谷歌一直在利用它从大家的gmail邮箱、安卓手机、谷歌搜索以及在YouTube视频网站上的爱好等来源收集到的信息干坏事，危险不在于谷歌可能会利用它从大家家里收集的数据干出更坏的事情来。他说，真正的危险在于，大家在谷歌服务器里的信息最终不可避免地落入真正的坏蛋手中。

    但是，最深思熟虑的评论来自于市场调研公司Asymco创始人霍利斯•德迪欧（经常都是这样）。

    德迪欧是克莱顿•克里斯滕森提出的颠覆理论的一位研究者，一直在寻找一家公司的“为什么”——它的经营模式、价值、指导原则。谷歌是一块难啃的骨头，因为它的既定原则“不作恶”——太不明确，因此毫无用处；而它的经营模式——销售广告——在很大程度上又跟它扬名立万的本事，也就是免费提供有价值的互联网服务，没有联系。

    德迪欧写道，在许多人眼里，谷歌就是互联网。

    “我们不怀疑互联网的生存，所以我们并不怀疑谷歌的生存——它的支柱，它的索引，以及它无处不在的广告，这些业务以某种方式让谷歌持续运营下去，我们认为谷歌就是基础设施。我们不会详述电网是否容易受到影响，或者燃料供应或天气是否容易受到影响，道理是一样的。”

    相比之下，苹果总是被华尔街视为“缓期执行的暂时享受”。他写道，世上并不存在所谓的“谷歌丧钟计时器”，但苹果丧钟计时器确实存在。世上也不存在“谷歌在劫难逃”的比喻。

    “如果一位谷歌高管辞职或者被解雇，投资者不会感到恐慌。如果一款产品被撤回，投资者不会感到悲哀。没有哪位记者会靠挖掘谷歌的阴暗面来追求普利策奖。”

    他写道，谷歌被看作是一个体系，由一个仁慈的三人领导小组（拉里•佩奇，谢尔盖•布林，埃里克•施密特）拥有，而且作为一项公益事业来经营。苹果可能也被看作是一个体系——或许作为一个永久的颠覆机器，但这并不是外界普遍认同的看法。

    “因为（苹果）不是一个体系，”德迪欧推断说。“它是脆弱的。它是一个人，或者一个想法，或者一款产品，或者解决某个问题的一个关键。它最终不能永生。唯一存在争论的地方在于，它什么时候会消亡。而预计苹果会很快、而不是很晚才会消亡的人是不无道理。

    “但如果苹果是一个体系的话会如何呢？而如果谷歌是一个人（或三个人）的话又会如何呢？”

    现在，这些都不是可能会在CNBC上提出的问题，也不是在CNBC能够得到答复的问题。（财富中文网）

    译者:iDo98

    There's beena lot of commentary -- good and bad -- in the week since Google (GOOG) made its $3.2 billion bid for Tony Fadell's Nest Labs.

    Fadell was best known, before he moved into WiFi-connected appliances, for running Apple's (AAPL) iPod division. So last week's news naturally led to a conversation about Apple and Google and what -- at its core -- each company is about.

    The remark that got the most play in the media was probably the least considered. Steve Jobs' biographer Walter Isaacson, pressed on CNBC Thursday morning to comment on the two big news events of the week -- the iPhone's launch on China Mobile and Google's purchase of Nest -- casually remarked that "the greatest innovation in the world today right now" is coming not from Apple but from Google. That did not sit well with Apple aficionados. Headline on MacDailyNews: "Scribe of flavorless Steve Jobs biography thinks Google is 'more innovative' than Apple because Google bought a thermostat company."

    On Friday's Accidental Tech Podcast John Siracusa offered what may be the most apocalyptic view. The risk, he said, is not that Google will do something more evil with data from inside your home than it does now with all the information it's already collected from your gmail, your Android phone, your Google searches, your taste in YouTube videos etc. The real danger, he said, comes when the information about you in Google's servers eventually, inevitably, falls into the hands of actual evil doers.

    But the most thoughtful commentary came, as it often does, from Asymco's Horace Dediu.

    Dediu, a student of Clayton Christensen's disruption theory, is always looking for the "why" of a company -- its business model, its values, its guiding principles. Google is a tough nut to crack because its stated principle -- "don't do evil" -- is too vague to be of any use, and its business model -- selling advertising -- is largely disconnected from what it is known for: Providing valuable Internet services for free.

    For a lot of people, Dediu writes, Google is the Internet.

    "We don't question the survival of the Internet so we don't question the survival of Google — its backbone, its index, and its pervasive ads which, somehow, keep the lights on. We believe Google is infrastructure. We don't dwell on whether electric grids are vulnerable, or supplies of fuel, or the weather!"

    Apple, in contrast, is always seen by Wall Street as "temporarily enjoying a stay of execution." There is no "Google death knell counter," he writes, as there is for Apple. There is no "Google is doomed" trope.

    "If an executive from Google quits or is fired there is no investor panic. If a product is withdrawn there is no mourning. There are no journalists pursuing Pulitzer prizes by describing some seamy underside of Google."

    Google, he writes, is viewed as a system, owned and run as a public good by a benevolent triumvirate (Larry Page, Sergei Brin, Eric Schmidt). Apple might also be viewed as a system -- as a perpetual disruption machine, perhaps -- but that's not the conventional wisdom.

    "Because [Apple is] not a system," Dediu concludes, "it's fragile. It's a person, or an idea, or a product or a singular 'key' to something. It is, ultimately, mortal. The only debate is when it will die and points are earned for calling it sooner rather than later.

    "But what if Apple were a system? And what if Google were a person (or three?)"

    Now those aren't questions likely to get asked -- or answered -- on CNBC.