Microsoft vs Google vs Apple vs Yahoo

January 26th, 2010 . Filed under: General. Tags: Apple, Google, Yahoo

This chart illustrates many of the services these companies provide. Some of their products have been cornerstone revenue streams, and others are just at the beginning of development. But putting them up against each other really helps illustrate each company’s focus and their possible future directions of exploration.

Microsoft really competes with everyone. It is on the desktop, in the cloud, on mobile devices, in your living room, answering search queries and navigating you to your favorite restaurant.

Although Google started in search and made billions of dollars in search-related advertising, it recently made the move into mobile software and hardware. Google is also moving to the desktop as hardware companies consider using Google’s Android operating system for tablet PCs and netbooks and Google continues developing its own Chrome OS.

Apple’s success with Mac personal computers, the iPod, the iPhone and iTunes has allowed it to step back from the fray and avoid competing in search, news, maps and social networks.

Yahoo has not really added any new products or services over the last year, but it seems to do best with content-related products. Yahoo News is still the No. 1 news site, and Flickr continues to grow and remain a highly successful photo Web site.

Full read at NYTimes Blogs.