Here we go -- looks like a rift is forming in the high-tech industry. If not by design, then by accident. My bet is on complete and total design -- by Google. Google's CEO, Eric Schmidt, has said that he likes Google's interplay and collaboration with AOL, eBay, Sun and Apple. This is a good thing for all companies involved -- and Google has relationships with all four of these companies now that Schmidt is, as of this week, on the board of Apple.

However, there is no love between Google and companies like Yahoo! and Microsoft. Google and Yahoo! are just about the most direct competitors I can see in the Internet space at this time, no matter how Yahoo! tries to characterize itself as a "media/content/customer relationship" company instead of a "search" company. At least at this time, Yahoo! and Google are very much equal in millions of eyes in terms of the perception of what each company provides to customers, although there are some pretty large differences.

The non-collaboration between Google and Microsoft is pretty clear -- the two continue to fight aggressively while behaving politely toward one another in the media. Google, slyly and confidently, appears to keep going after Microsoft's jugular with releases like Google Apps (just this week) and trying to find the start of replicating pieces of the Microsoft empire (at least a start) through the free Internet and through a single vessel known as the web browser.