Is this war? It looks trivial, sounds personal but at heart this is 2 key multinational corporations fighting for the domination of markets that may well define us culturally, socially, economically and eventually politically.
Google's overt entry into the hardware domain merely underlines the scary power we know they have.
For Google, the project is a pre-emptive move to get a foothold in the living room as more consumers start exploring ways to bring web content to their TV sets.
"I think Google is gearing up to be potentially quite a formidable competitor to existing telcos and ISPs, given their moves into the infrastructure level," Warren Chaisatien, research director and principal analyst at Australian firm Telsyte, said.
First they're making phones, now they're putting in the pipes.