Top level executives made headlines this week, with new developments in management shaping the online conversation in business tech. On top of that, Apple and Google compared financial numbers, while […]

Top level executives made headlines this week, with new developments in management shaping the online conversation in business tech. On top of that, Apple and Google compared financial numbers, while the battle between Microsoft and Salesforce.com became a little more personal this week.

The week started off with the much-discussed announcement of Apple CEO Steve Jobs' medical leave. Jobs, one of the most influential figures in the industry, has been hailed as Apple's savior for his developments with the iPod, iTunes, Mac and iPad during the past decade. Searches for "Steve Jobs medical leave" returned more than 5,700 results on Google News at press time, an impressive amount of attention for four-day-old news.

However, Apple, under the control of COO Tim Cook, didn't take long to improve its image for its Jobs-less days ahead. The day after Jobs announced his medical leave, Apple's shares opened 5 percent lower than before. In response, Apple released its fourth quarter financial numbers, which broke records for quarterly revenues and profits, at $26.7 billion and $6 billion, respectively. Stock prices have since rebounded.

Not to be outdone, the guys at Google announced their own management shakeup, except with positive connotations. On Thursday, Eric Schmidt announced that he will step down after 10 years as the company's CEO, replaced by co-founder Larry Page. According to Schmidt, the two will collaborate with co-founder Sergey Brin in a "triumvirate approach."

The move is important to Google's competition with Facebook, which has cut into the online advertising market Google has long dominated. According to the New York Times, analysts and Google inside sources said the company's structure has resembled a "slower-moving bureaucracy" in recent years, and the shakeup will help the search giant compete with more dynamic companies, such as Facebook and Twitter.

Google's response to Apple didn't stop there, as the company also released its own successful fourth quarter earnings, which Schmidt called "a terrific end to a stellar year." Google's revenue grew 26 percent compared to its fourth quarter in 2009, totaling $8.4 billion before the end of 2010. The reach of the leading cloud company grew across the globe, with nearly $4.4 billion in international revenues accounting for 52 percent of its fourth quarter total.

The rest of the cloud industry felt competition heat up early in the week, after Microsoft introduced its cloud-based Dynamics CRM Online software to 40 new international markets at nearly half the price of Salesforce.com's least expensive offering. Dynamics CRM Online starts at $34 per user, whereas Salesforce.com's Professional edition is available for $65 per user.

Salesforce.com, apparently lacking a product release to respond to Microsoft, fired back by claiming that "enterprises around the world are choosing Salesforce CRM over Microsoft Dynamics CRM." Salesforce.com's announcement highlighted some of its larger customers, including Comcast-Spectacor and JVL Corporation, and included testimonies from each.

At time of publication, Salesforce.com's response fell flat in the face of Microsoft's cloud innovation, with searches for "Microsoft Dynamics CRM" heavily outnumbering those for "Salesforce.com CRM," according to Google Realtime results.

The full impact of these new developments are likely to spur some noisy online chatter next week. Keep listening as the conversation gets louder.

Colin Neagle is a former editor of Brafton's Business Technology section. He studied journalism, writing and mass communications in college, and has experience writing business news for a number of newspapers and online publications.