The real prize in Google's AdMob buy: iPhone user data

Boy, this mobile advertising scene is starting to get complicated. So Apple (AAPL) spoke to mobile online advertising company AdMob before the company's CEO Omar Hamoui inked its recent $750 million deal with Google (GOOG), Bloomberg and others have reported. This was unusual as Apple has typically steered well clear of advertising or of anything that required a serious sales force beyond its retail domain.

A mobile advertising network requires both a salesforce but also its own marketing efforts and other assorted business functions currently not native to Apple. The AdMob purchase was a comfortable fit for Google, in all probability, because AdMob's vice president of engineering and top technical officer Kevin Scott is a Google alum (he served as senior engineering manager).