Rob Pegoraro is a technology columnist at The Washington Post. I recently interviewed him on our Motley Fool Money radio show. Here is an edited transcript of our conversation:

Chris Hill: Other than each other, what do you think is the biggest threat to Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) and Google (Nasdaq: GOOG)?

Rob Pegoraro: I think you have to sort of go back to Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT), because they do have a huge, installed base. They have shown that they can move quickly when they have to. Look at how the Xbox and the Xbox 360 have done. With that, Microsoft was moving into a market where it had no experience, no installed base at all where you had Sony (NYSE: SNE) and Nintendo and Sega owning the video game console market and Microsoft knocked Sega out of that business entirely. So when they put their mind to it, they can do good work. It is just a question of what sort of sweeping changes are they willing to make in their existing lines that have maybe gotten stale. I think Windows Phone 7 could be a good example of them recovering since they elected to pretty much scrap Windows Mobile as we knew it.

Hill: Now I know you are not a stock picker, but you follow technology closely and increasingly it looks like we are in an Apple versus Google kind of world, like it is a Coke versus Pepsi kind of world. Over the next five years, which of those two companies do you think has a greater upside?

Pegoraro: That's a good question. It really amazes me; you are correct that I am not a stock picker, I can't invest in any of these companies, which I should note. Had I been able to invest in some of these companies ten years ago, I would have gotten my clock cleaned. Cisco and MicroStrategy --- they looked like a sure thing at the time.

That is a tough call, because on the one hand, Apple sells enormously popular devices that for the most part, aside from the occasional reception problem, they work great, they look great, they exceed your expectations in all sorts of pleasant ways. Google doesn't quite do that, but they have services that reach so far and compare so well. Look at how a free service like Google Docs does things that Microsoft Office is only just starting to do like letting you share a document with somebody on the other side of the world, work on it at the same time. So you hate to bet against Apple here. I guess I would say put some money in both. Sorry, that is the most weasely answer I could give. (laughs)

Which smart phone will rule the roost in three years?  Find out in "Android vs. Blackberry vs. iPhone."