Google (GOOG) CEO Eric Schmidt has left the Apple (AAPL) board. Apple says it was because of increasing conflicts between the two companies, a sign that the war among large tech companies is growing and that Microsoft (MSFT) may no no longer be the primary target of competition as it once was.

Apple released a statement saying “as Google enters more of Apple’s core businesses, with Android and now Chrome OS, Eric’s effectiveness as an Apple Board member will be significantly diminished.” That is a pleasant way for the maker of the iPhone and iPod to say that a bloody conflict between the two companies is mounting as Google gets into the business of powering hardware devices and Apple gets into the business of providing software applications including operating systems for phones and PCs.

There has been an uneasy detente between Apple and Google over the course of the three years that Schmidt has been on the Apple board, but Google’s search engine business is no longer growing rapidly and it sees products like its Android operating system as a chance to reignite that pace of its top line expansion. Apple, in turn, is no longer selling Macs and iPods at the same rate it was a year ago. The iPod is probably reaching a level of market saturation now that roughly 200 million units have been sold. The Mac has taken enough market share so that the large PC firms like Dell (DELL) and HP (HPQ) have it in their cross hairs.

The end of peace between Apple and Google sets up a triumvirate of combatants with Microsoft being at the third corner trying to protect its hugely profitable operating system with the launch of Windows 7. It is also attempting to hold its lead in PC browsers with the latest edition of Internet Explorer. Microsoft’s new search deal with Yahoo! (YHOO) escalates the matching of software skill and capital between the largest search company and the largest software company in the world.

Microsoft had made the competition among the tech titans even more complex by its major effort to get its handset operating system onto as many smartphones as it can around the world. It is willing to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to build alliances, which puts in the path of the growth of Google’s Android OS and Apple’s iPhone software features.

Schmidt may have a few choice words for Jobs as he leaves his board seat, something along the line of “I will see you on the battlefield.”

Douglas A. McIntyre

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