The Google/Apple war rages on. With the release of the iPad, and a thickening plot that adds Verizon Wireless, Adobe, and even China to the expanding list of Google foes, it’s impossible to ignore the situation.

But why should we care? As consumers, what implications does this have for us? And as business professionals, what lessons can we take away?

Competition breeds innovation.

Google and Apple – two companies with formerly divergent products – now compete with hardware, software, and even advertising. When two similar brands battle, greater innovation and lower prices ensue, and consumers inevitably emerge victorious.

Google has struggled to profit from anything but search, which is why hardly a week goes by without word of another Google innovation. The Nexus One left the iPhone in its dust with features like a better camera and copy/paste capability. Only time will tell how Apple will retaliate. (Some speculate that Apple may eventually lower prices.)

Brand trust is a must.

Google had been criticized of rushing to get Nexus One on the market, and letting customer service fall by the wayside. While Apple conducted years of research and nailed down all necessary patents before bringing the iPhone to market, Google’s entrance into the mobile market was rushed in comparison.

This raises the question of how much money consumers will invest in Android apps, knowing Google might not continue with the Nexus One. Apple’s iPhone, on the other hand, already has apps that will work on the iPod and iPad. For the time being, Apple has the key advantage of higher consumer trust.

All eyes are on search.

It’s obvious that there’s plenty of money to be made in search, specifically in paid search. Turning search queries into leads has become huge business. Google commands this market, generating money through online advertising. Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster recently predicted another significant result of the feud: Apple’s foray into the search realm:

We believe the odds of Apple developing a search engine in the next five years are 70%. One hurdle for Apple in developing its own search engine would be generating enough advertiser interest to form a competitive marketplace; however, we believe the rationale for an Apple search product is to protect data rather than generate profit.

Apple may not seem like a big threat in the search world. However, since it controls more than half of the mobile Web market share, Munster suggests Apple can use the data it has captured from having Google maps and search accessible on the iPhone to improve its own products, ultimately surpassing Google in the search arena.

Last week Gmail user, Andranik Souvalian of Cranston, Rhode Island, filed a lawsuit against Google claiming that “[Google] intentionally exceeded it’s authorization to access and control confidential and private information”.  This comes as a result to last month’s Buzz debacle.

According to the complaint, “Google, through its Buzz social networking tool, has unlawfully disclosed its customers’ private communications and records, including but not limited to, the automatic and unauthorized importing of its customers’ private e-mail contacts into the Buzz social network. Buzz has raised privacy concerns including, but not limited to automatic importing of private contacts and showing them to friends and importing without authorization the customers’ private photos onto the Buzz social network.”

Souvalian’s attorney, Peter N. Waslyk has this to say about the lawsuit: “a very important issue with respect to individuals’ privacy rights and their right to be alerted when their privacy is not being honored online.”

It seems as if the complaints keep piling up for Google.  Last week, an amendment to a separate complaint was filed against Google stating that they violated users’ privacy by using contact lists for unrelated reasons.

According to the Associated Press, Google has tweaked their social hub, Buzz in response to privacy concerns.  Gmail users worried that Buzz made their email contacts visible to others.  It did so by turning these email contacts into followers (or in Facebook terms, “friends”), and making this list public.

Google rolled out Buzz earlier this week.  The Gmail service allows users to give status updates and share interests through their email account.  Sound familiar?  That’s because, according to Yahoo and Microsoft, they have been doing it for years.  “Busy people don’t want another social network, what they want is the convenience of aggregation,” Microsoft said in a statement. “We’ve done that. Hotmail customers have benefited from Microsoft working with Flickr, Facebook, Twitter and 75 other partners since 2008.”  Yahoo makes a strong claim that they were the original.  In a recent tweet, Yahoo posted: “Two years after #Yahoo! launched #Buzz, Google follows suit. Check out the original: http://buzz.yahoo.com/”

You can’t argue with that.  In fact, it seems that Google didn’t even try to be creative by coming up with an original name.

Google has not enjoyed much success in the social networking arena.  Does anyone remember Orkut?  What about Google Wave?  You don’t hear much about them any more, do you?  Google Wave was supposed to kill email and was a trending topic on Twitter for weeks, maybe even months.

Since Google Buzz is fully integrated with Gmail, they have initially added 176 million users (according to com Score) to their new social network.  This is an amazing number for any new social site, even one with the name “Google”.  However, they haven’t had much social networking success in the past and they are already facing some serious concerns with this one.

Iran’s telecommunications agency announced a permanent suspension of Google’s email services. According to the agency, they will be rolling out a national email service for Iranian citizens.  All this in the midst of an expected anti-government protest; which stems from last May’s presidential elections.  If you remember, Twitter played a huge role for communication during the protests; this caused a lot of Iranian citizens to be reliant on western technology.  Prior to May’s election, the Iranian government  blocked access to Facebook.  Not only have the social networking sites and Gmail been blocked, the Wall Street Journal reports that the police have confiscated satellite dishes from residential rooftops.

Google announced on their blog today that they will be building and testing ultra high-speed networks throughout multiple trial locations in the United States. Their plan is to deliver internet at a speed of more than 100 times faster than what most people have. Over 50,000 homes will receive 1 gigabit per second, fiber-optic broadband at a competitive price. According to Google:

Our goal is to experiment with new ways to help make Internet access better and faster for everyone. Here are some specific things that we have in mind:

• Next generation apps: We want to see what developers and users can do with ultra high-speeds, whether it’s creating new bandwidth-intensive “killer apps” and services, or other uses we can’t yet imagine.
• New deployment techniques: We’ll test new ways to build fiber networks, and to help inform and support deployments elsewhere, we’ll share key lessons learned with the world.
• Openness and choice: We’ll operate an “open access” network, giving users the choice of multiple service providers. And consistent with our past advocacy, we’ll manage our network in an open, non-discriminatory and transparent way .

Within the past year, Google has managed to throw their hat in the ring in social networking and mobile phones. Their play in the mobile phone arena has even caused a potential partnership between Microsoft and Apple. With their announcement today, one could only wonder if Verizon and Comcast are working on a collaboration of their own.

The last two major announcements Google made came with a lot of hype and high hopes. Google Wave did not live up to the hype and the jury’s still out on the Nexus One. If their high-speed internet lives up to the hype, Google can corner the market in ways we never thought of before.