Soon after, Google CEO Eric Schmidt stepped down from his post on Apple’s board of directors. Since Schmidt’s departure from Apple’s board, the two companies have been in an all-out war. They’ve battled over high-profile acquisitions, including mobile advertising firm AdMob, which
was highly sought after by both companies. AdMob sells banner ads that appear inside mobile applications, and the company is on the cutting edge of developing new methods of mobile advertising. Apple was close to a deal with the
start-up when Google swooped in and bought AdMob for $750 million in stock. Google doesn’t expect to earn anything close to that in returns from the deal, but it was willing to pay a premium to disrupt Apple’s mobile advertising effort.