Being a Google competitor is a dangerous position to inhabit.

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The West Coast company bought telephony patents from BTG and used its strong, new position to negotiate with its competitor.

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Simons also played his chips, taking up positions in MasterCard and competitor Visa, while closing out his position in American Express.

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Making things even more complicated is VMware must now walk the line as both a member of the OpenStack Foundation, which puts it in a tough position as both a contributor as well as a competitor to the OpenStack project.

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But articles like this position Flash as an apples-to-apples direct competitor to HTML5, when in fact, they are complementary.

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Stamboulie has since coached the client to take another step toward an even more desirable position: She urged him to reach out to a competitor of his former employer, through a mutual contact.

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" Adam Quinton, regional telecom analyst with Merrill Lynch in Singapore, agrees: "Both Thailand and Philippines seem to be demonstrating that a new competitor with good marketing and aggressive pricing can make inroads into the incumbent's position once nationwide coverage has been achieved.

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This is precisely the position Apple wants to be in, and where it wants Samsung, its fiercest competitor.

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