Apples Worst Enemies
By Ericka Chickowski
Microsoft
From the acrimonious ‘look-and-feel’ lawsuit that accused Microsoft of stealing the idea of the Windows GUI to the PC-vs-Mac marketing campaign, the rivalry between these two companies is as bitter as ever.
HTC
Clearly the phone hardware manufacturer struck a nerve with the folks at Apple with its popular Android-powered Nexus One–predictably, Apple drew its legal fangs claiming ‘Copycat!’ in the courts in March
HP
With its pick-up of Palm and rumors of a new tablet in the works for third quarter, partners can expect HP to sell them on the prospect of an iPad killer very soon
Adobe
Steve Jobs didn’t make many friends at Adobe this spring with his open letter to the company dissing Flash and promising that Apple has no plans to support Flash players in the iPad or iPhone any time soon.
Asus
The company that single-handedly jump started the netbook market is gunning for the iPad with its derivatively named EeePad, due out early 2011. It’ll have an apps store and unlike iPad, it’ll support Flash.
Google
Google’s "Droid Does" marketing campaign is proof positive that it wants a bigger piece of the smartphone market with its Android platform and it plans on aggressively pursuing potential and existing iPhone customers to get it
Dell
With its legions of already loyal laptop customers and its own iPad tablet knock-off hitting the markets soon, Dell is another reliably painful thorn in Apple’s side
Amazon.com
The Kindle-maker saw its eReader position threatened in January when Apple introduced its iPad tablet computer that came with a preinstalled eReader. Not to mention, Apple had negotiated deals with top booksellers that disrupted Amazon’s pricing plan to promote eBook sales.