The Motley Fool Rule Breakers team is back on the road, this time to tour Silicon Valley and attend the Google I/O developer conference. In addition to dispatches like this one, look for special updates at the Rule Breakers site and get live coverage at @TMFRuleBreakers on Twitter.
You can't just visit Google (Nasdaq: GOOG). "Visiting" Google is like visiting Washington, D.C. You could go to the Capitol, the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, the White House, the Supreme Court, or any number of other federal structures that play a role in governing.
So it is with Google. To visit the Googleplex is to visit any of the mass of structures that stretch across Mountain View, Calif. In each, code is being written, products are being tested (I witnessed the setup for a "Gadget Fiesta" -- whatever that means), and ideas are being debated.
On the Crittenden campus where I was, you get a particular flavor for the rebellious ethos that Google has spent years cultivating. There, you'll find unchained bikes painted in Googly colors for employees to ride around campus, electric charging stations for hybrid car owners, a bowling alley, and multiple baristas serving really good cappuccino.
Yet none of it impressed me as much as the number of Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) gadgets being used by the Googlers sipping cappuccino along with me. Of the 13 laptops open and crunching cloudy code, 12 were Macs. Several had iPhones.
This, Fools, was a brief snapshot of life in the Googleplex. Home to the enemy, the company vying with Apple to topple Research In Motion (Nasdaq: RIMM) and Nokia (NYSE: NOK) and control the market for smart mobile devices.
It got me thinking: Maybe the real myth is that there's a war between these two. Sure, Apple and Google compete. But so do Tom and David Gardner, the Brothers Fool. They tease, taunt, and one-up each other. They joke. In the end, they're both better off for it. And so are, I suspect, Apple and Google.
Do you agree? Disagree? Tell us what you think about the competition between Apple and Google and share your predictions for the Google I/O developer conference using the comments box below. You can also rate Google in Motley Fool CAPS.
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