Chrome OS. Google’s Distraction Move.
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As you must know by now Google have announced that they are going to release an OS aimed at the netbook market built around their Chrome browser. It’s a good move because netbook’s are one of the fastest growing segments of the computer industry at the moment. The thing is though I don’t see how Google would hope to beat Microsoft at their own game. If you remember, netbook’s were meant to be Linux machines and at first they were. Cheap and cheerful is what people wanted they said. Figures now say that ~94% of netbook’s have Microsoft Windows. Microsoft managed to completely grab this market from what is a free OS. How did they do this? Because users are more familiar with Windows. People will obviously pay a premium to use an OS that they recognize and can run their apps on. So if they managed to do this how will Google manage to grab those users back with what is afterall just another interface on top of Linux? So this leads me on to what I think is Google’s actual plans.
Google dominate the web. Microsoft dominate the desktop. But Microsoft also have a pretty strong foothold on the web as well and their newly rebranded Bing search engine is gaining more users – no where near Googles but it has still been gaining and is receiving a majority of good reviews. But what happens if Microsoft manage to gain a large enough percentage of the web? What do Google have then? They dont have a major dominance in any other software area, which is another reason why I think they created Android when they did. I believe they are just trying to distract and pee off Microsoft, just enough for them to take their concentration away from the web for a while. Just remember that while you may have all the market the only way forward is to loose users, when you have no market share the only way forward is to gain users. All the while this is chipping away at Google and they need time to sort something out properly. It’s a clever move because it may distract Microsoft’s attention and/or it may work out and they get a foothold on the desktop. The same applies to Android. Microsoft certainly are not dumb and I guess they are fuming at the news, so I am interested in what they can and will do about it.
Also remember that if Google has a cash cow, then Microsoft has cattle.
Update: Google announces hardware and Software Partners
I have just read on el’ Reg that Google has announced who they are going to work with for the hardware to run their new OS. It appears that they have all the big names on the list including Acer, ASUS, Freescale, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, and Toshiba. Strangely Dell are missing from that List. They have also announced that Adobe will be a software partner.
A ridiculous proposal, so say the least. Microsoft is clinging to monolithic development strategies, taking years to push products out the door, then facing public humiliation for not listening to their customers. Google already shifted the software development paradigm with their App suite, by allowing it to grow organically into what users needed. They shifted the data center paradigm by using a network of cheap, in-house machines with custom software and rigorous coding requirements. Now they’re poised to change something at the front-end; how users access content and interact with it. Microsoft is a giant, clinging to old ways as its’ marketshare slowly creeps away, while Google is pushing forwards, finding better ways. Google wants to be a leader in cloud computing, and they seem to be making progress on that.
I completely agree with what you say about how Microsoft and Google operate. I suppose only time will tell and it is after all a theory. Just remember though that Microsoft must be doing something right and also it does actually support its products and Google has a reputation for not supporting its products enough and its forever in beta. When it comes to Operating Systems it all comes down to personal preference and it would appear that Windows has been the choice so far. I really do hope that Google release a competitive desktop OS and I also hope that Microsoft manages to release a competitive search solution (and any other technically capable company) because a properly competitive market is good for everyone. We don’t want to end up with just another dominating monolith.
Chrome OS would be very competitive on Microsoft operating systems. I was thinking that one day, Google would launch an Operating system that would complete with Windows XP or Vista. Google and Microsoft would compete head to head now that Microsft launched its Bing search engine.
with the release of Google Chrome and Microsoft Bing search engine, one would expect that there would be a very stiff competition between Google and Microsoft.
Chrome OS is sort of a very basic operating system based on Linux. i wish that google make an operating system just like Windows XP that would compete with Microsoft