Steve Jobs went on a bit of a rant during Apple's (NASDAQ: AAPL) quarterly earnings call this week, thrashing Google (NASDAQ: GOOG)--among others--for fragmenting the mobile computing environment. "Many Android OEMs, including the two largest, HTC and Motorola, install proprietary user interfaces to differentiate themselves from the commodity Android experience," Jobs said during his surprise appearance on the earnings call (during which Apple announced its first $20 billion quarter). "The user's left to figure it all out. Compare this with iPhone, where every handset works the same."

Was the smackdown just another example of Apple's genius ability to draw attention to itself, or was it a sign of impending upheaval in the mobility sector that will have a huge impact on enterprise computing? Here are a few opinions:

Jobs made a big point of noting that Apple has activated "about 275,000 iOS devices" a day on average over the past month or so, while Google reportedly has been activating about 200,000 Android devices a day. Joe Wilcox at BetaNews points out that this is an "apples to oranges comparison" because the Android devices are almost all phones while the iOS devices include iPhones, iPads and iPods.

"It's a me-too claim that demonstrates Jobs' fear Android may do to iPhone what Windows did to the Mac during the 1980s and 1990s," Wilcox writes. "Jobs' defensive, competitor-attacking comments were unnerving...The cheap shots, given from such a position of competitive strength, were unbecoming."

Or perhaps, as InformationWeek's Bob Evans writes, the rant was less of a demonstration of fear and defensiveness than a word of advice. As mobile devices become increasingly strategic tools for enterprises, it might behoove IT executives to pay attention to the chief of a company that just announced its first $20 billion quarter, he suggests.

"For CIOs, this is not just drive-by commentary of the rich and powerful--rather, it's a peek into the future of what could very well be driving your IT strategies and deployments: The mobile devices that are becoming the real-time revenue-generating tools for not just your sales teams but for many (most? all?) of your creative and market-facing employees," Evans writes.  

Enterprise IT is in a major state of flux, Evans argues, and age-old strategies like locking down desktops may not prove very productive going forward. "You think this untethered-device stuff is all a fad? You think the iPad is a nothing more than a big iPhone, which is nothing more than an expensive pain-in-the-ass status symbol for your hot-shot colleagues? You think the consumer world still stops at the IT bubble?" Evans writes. "If your answer to any of those questions is yes, then I think that by this time you're going to be out of a job. And that's why this Apple-versus-Google battle is one that's incredibly important for CIOs."

During the earnings call, Jobs took aim at RIM and Twitter as well as Google, and each of his targets has taken a turn shooting back.  For a recap of Jobs' criticism of the three companies and each of their responses, take a look at Tom Kaneshige's post at CIO magazine. Kaneshige gives his own take on which companies won this battle in the rhetoric war.

For more:
- see Joe Wilcox' post at BetaNews
- see Bob Evans' post at InformationWeek
- see Tom Kaneshige's post at CIO magazine

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