- July 9, 2009
- Posted by: admin
- Categories: Agile Applications, Blog, Business Dynamics, Enterprise Software
Google is jumping into Microsoft Windows territory — and threatening to change the way personal computers work — with its own version of a computer operating system.
The company says the forthcoming Google Chrome OS will revolutionize how computers operate, putting more emphasis on Web functionality, making computers faster and opening them up to helpful tinkering by outside program developers.
A trim and speedy Google operating system, which has been buzzed about online for some time, is interesting for several reasons — even if you think it could flop out of the gate.
The first is that Chrome OS will be available as “open-source” technology. That means software developers will be able to mess with the code behind the system, allowing them to develop new applications for it.
In essence, it puts the users in control. This wisdom-of-the-masses philosophy flies right in the face of Microsoft Windows, which keeps its code locked away.
The open-source nature of Chrome OS also has led to some speculation that the software will be free, as many open-source platforms are. Google Inc., based in Mountain View, California, hasn’t commented on price as of yet, although most of its services, such as Gmail and Picasa, are free.
Second, Google’s operating system supports another buzz term in the tech world: cloud computing. That phrase means a bunch of things to different people, but it essentially refers to the idea that a lot of computing can be done through Internet servers instead of on the computer that’s sitting in front of you.
Cloud computing, in part, is behind the rise in netbooks — small laptops that are essentially portals of entry into the much greater vat of information, storage space and computing power that exists “in the cloud.”
Reference: http://edition.cnn.com/2009/TECH/07/08/google.chrome.os/index.html
What do your predict for Google’s OS and Microsoft’s response..Who will win the battle and who will win the war?
30 Comments
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What’s a better tool a screwdriver or a hammer? Explain…
Little hard, huh? Different tools for different jobs.
And remember – a lone lawyer in a town starves to death. Two lawyers in town get rich. Competition is good and beneficial to any long term business strategy. How can you say your product is better when there is no one else to throw under the bus?
I don’t think there will be a winner each party will have market share, but the good think for consumers that there will be a massive price drop in Microsoft Products especially windows
The key is will people use the Google Chrome OS. There are already really good alternative OS available but people continue to use Windows because it works with all their software, cameras, printers and devices.
Google Chrome OS will have to be really user freindly and ready to work with devices right out of the box so to speak to be a threat to Windows.
Cloud computing and web based software have well publicized security issues to deal with. These services need to do a lot to gain the trust of users.
Ultimately open source free OS software can only get better, and it will take away market share but as always it needs a strong champion to drive it forward. Microsoft wont give up their lucrative monopoly without one hell of a fight.
When Linux was in its formative stages there were articles pondering the same — who will win, and who will lose.
At the time I was running a Linux Users Group in my college and I wrote my own opinion stating that Microsoft will still be around and that we will be looking at a “multipolar” world.
Chrome OS will have its purpose and so will Windows and Linux. I am not sure if Microsoft needs to do much, but I could be wrong. If I were Microsoft I would be more worried about Nintendo than Google, but that is just my own humble opinion.
I think users will largely fall into two camps:
* Power users (serious applications, e.g., media, gamers, autocad, etc.)
* Net users (web based applications, email, lightweight apps)
“Net users” don’t need a heavy (and expensive) OS. These folks can use modest PC’s with a potentially free Google OS at a fraction of the price of a system today.
I think there are a LOT of users out there who will think they need a MS OS initially, but will eventually discover many advantages to a light OS and web applications. I think some real innovation may begin now. Both could really come out winners. Microsoft because they’re forced to build slick, fast, stable, safe OS’s that people WANT to use and can afford. Google will expand the computer using base and help drive innovation.
Winners? I think we all stand to gain from this…MS may lose some market and some money, but if they innovate and compete, they could make up any losses.
While Microsoft has had great victories in previous battles, ultimately I think Google will win the war. Google is innovating ideas that are relevant to the world’s current problems. Their innovations have the added advantage of great usability and reduced costs. As it has been mentioned, competition is healthy, however I think Google will win the 21st Century battle. They just need to focus on the security issue which already it seems people are coming to terms with.
Sarah
Technology Consultant
Platform45 (Pty) Ltd
http://www.platform45.com
Google “Chrome OS” is just a new Linux distribution (kernel) with Chrome as default browser instead of Firefox (with NeatX for windowing).
Different (re)mixes of popular Linux distributions have already been available on netbooks, but users switched to Windows (XP) as soon as they got a chanche. It seems the’re looking for deskop experience on such lighweight platforms.
Faster and more powerful processors and platforms help Microsoft push their OS (more demanding than simplified Linux distribution). I seriously doubt Google will take the desktop (+netbook) “OS of the choice” crown form Microsoft. It’s more likely they will take a few %, just like Chrome did.
But, some say, this is just a strategic move, to fool MSFT to look in other direction, while they’re pushing Android, and neutralize the Bing.com threat.
Google has a tough road ahead of it when it comes to marketing an operating system. After all they are going after Microsoft’s bread and butter. To be successfully the OS has to appeal to a wide audience and this means the average consumer who has only used MS Windows. Breaking a lifelong habit is a difficult undertaking.
Google’s OS has to be easy to use, visually appealing and provide all the programs that people run on a daily basis. There are of course free Linux alternatives to most popular software and like other distros there will probably be a fair amount bundled with the OS. Even so, Linux is still not something that most people are comfortable with. Reducing any learning cure will be important and making the OS widely available as a boxed option when buying a computer will be paramount.
Can Google pull it off? It’s possible. They have a good track record. Google is the search engine of choice, GMail is leading the pack for free e-mail services and Android is an up and comer in the cell phone market. Who’s to say that they can’t eventually win the OS wars as well?
First, you are making a very long assumption that there will be a clear winner or loser. Google is having fun posing it this way but it is absurd.
Operating systems with very entrenched user base and application pool do not die easily, even if they deserve to. There is a huge amount of inertia getting programmers on board to re-build the applications and users to take the time to accustom themselves to the new systems ways.
Look at how hard it has been for Apple to make even the progress that they have.
Then there are a lot of questions about what a company whose primary purpose is in gathering information about people is up to with an operating system. It will be google, not microsoft who is the monopolistic threat.
I think all this is about a company with more cash than God trying to find something to keep itself in the news cycle. They have not spent a great deal on this and they have little to lose.
Ultimately, I don’ think this is going anywhere.
Actually :
– if Microsoft will try to fight Google in the Netbooks OS, Microsoft will lose the war.
– if Google will try to fight Microsoft in the Desktop OS, Google will lose.
Innovation and users will always win because this competition!
Prediction for the future?
– Google is betting on a future focused on cloud computing and users moving to Netbook
– Microsoft is not (only)
Everybody is betting on the net, the question is “how near this future is and Google will have the funds to wait for it?”
Probably Google is betting on making this future start to happen from _nonw_ !
I hate to say, but I know for sure Microsoft remain to have the biggest market share by far.
Power users don’t need a web-focussing OS, and users who do most of their stuff online — instant messaging, email, putting photo’s online, browsing — will stick to what they already know, and that’s a Windows environment. If Joe Sixpack around the block uses MSN messenger with all these fancy emoticons, why would Jane Doe switch to something different?
In the end, the Average User wants his icons, buttons and controls to be on the same place as he/she is used to at school/work/whatever, so there is no need to switch to a completely different looking/behaving OS where you most likely cannot install the same applications as your friends.
obviously Google as it has set the trend of winning all the way commencing from search engine. Hats off to the team of Google!!!!
What’s wrong with competition. About Time someone stood up to M$.
I have an issue with: “Google is jumping into Microsoft Windows territory”
M$ has done this since day one. there is not one territory they didnt try to weave themselves into.
Wha’s good for the goose is good for the gander.
1 of 2 things will occur , M$ will start to make a better product or Google will wind up making a far better product and we will finally have a new and possibly stable OS..
Because as things go, I am so close to just going to Linux and not turning back.
I dont think either of them will really win cause both are not really solving the same problem. It is the customer who will win. Till now microsoft did not have any major threats to its OS business. It’s apps business had stiff competition due to pricing and support issues. Google is just bringing in the competition from a medium to long term perspective. In short term its microsoft all the way provided they dont re-do Vista with 7.
Also similarly there is an angle of ARM to Intel competition but what will really change is computing habbits then needs. Definitely you cannot solve the need of doing designing and video rendring with ARM chips, Chrome OS as the software ecosystem for that area is too weak.
With this definitely the total TAM for computing will increase as new form factors evolve and taking the pricing below USD 150 without any contracts. The people who have not been touched with computers and net will be the one who will make most of these new device and software combos. This will give them a reallization of their needs to do more and essentially get a full fledged device with a different software stack.
Yes, the guys who are already on the computing band wagon would want to have these new category of devices but that will be their one of the devices to stay connected. They will still have to fall back to get medium to heavy workloads as Cloud has still to evolve on security and reliability.
In the search engine market Google can’t increase their market share anymore, so they need to protect their current market share or find new markets. All previous releases (Android, Chrome browser, ChromeOS) are intended to protect the market share of their online content.
Protecting the google search engine by offering a platform that directs end-users to Google’s online content, that’s what this is all about.
Your question is: will people move from Windows (or any other OS) to Chrome OS?
I assume that most (potential) Chrome OS users, are those who are already using a Windows alternative (most probably Linux). Some Windows users changed to Linux in the past, but still Windows is the dominant OS on end-user market.
A good and stable OS is important, but MUCH more important are the applications available for that OS. Therefore I don’t think that users (desktop and laptop) will suddenly move from Windows to ChromeOS.
However, since some applications are moving to online apps (google docs and spreadsheets, GMail, Google Earth, Google Talk, etc), Chrome OS might become an interesting alternative for the cheap internet devices like netbooks. Perhaps we can expect an MS reaction (price reduction, light weight Windows, etc) in that product market.
Well that’s my point-of-view on this topic.
Best regards,
Theo
Microsoft will do better unless Google is able to get their application to run windows apps. There are just to many windows software packages out their that people use. I would love to leave microsoft but cannot until that happens.
For an OS to win it has to be light weight, freeing up as much hardware resources for user applications.
These days OSes operate and manage themselves, like manager of managers in a corporate!!!
The consumer will win the war. Microsoft will always be there because they have an “in” by being pre-installed on nearly every machine sold. There is no consumer perception of cost since it’s rolled into the purchase price. But there is occasional frustration when that pre-installed system or one of its pieces fails. Some consumers, those who are comparably daring, or open to new possibilities, or who are simply fed up with the frustration they’re experiencing, might try a different system (OS and applications). And some of them might find that other system to be superior for their needs.
Competition, to which Douglas and others allude, is healthy, even in the Operating System industry. And the more options there are, the harder each has to work to be unique and desirable. Microsoft will never go away, and they shouldn’t because then someone else becomes the evil monopoly.
Google is gunning for your couch !
Links:
http://www.linkedin.com/redirect?url=http%3A%2F%2Fangelicquotes%2Ewordpress%2Ecom%2F2009%2F07%2F13%2Fgoogle-is-taking-over-your-couch%2F&urlhash=tTHh
Consumers will win.. MS and Google will offer free services.
Both firms will be around for a long time to come..
Best regards,
Jonathan Kine, MBA
Links:
* http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/07/15/google.microsoft.battle/index.html
who r giving flxible customer support they will win..
Huuuh….. quite a interesting question i think let it be on future bcoz both Microsoft and Google are innovative and its quite difficult to judge the qualities….
Links:
* http://www.thesecretformulatobefreeofdebt.com/
* http://mrrichardking.blogspot.com/
None. There will be a new player in future, who will threaten both. MS was and is monopolistic, Google is going in that direction, but it has learnt from MS, so it is going in that direction, by taking people into confidence, so we will not even know that it is monopolistic, since Google involves people in everything, so if you call it monopolistic you feel you , yourself are monopolistic 🙂
Remember its not the company, its the people who make or break things. At the end of the day, the customer wins the war, since it will fuel innovation and more people will jump in, keeping the hope for a better future alive, for ever.
None. There will be a new player in future, who will threaten both. MS was and is monopolistic, Google is going in that direction, but it has learnt from MS, so it is going in that direction, by taking people into confidence, so we will not even know that it is monopolistic, since Google involves people in everything, so if you call it monopolistic you feel you , yourself are monopolistic 🙂
Remember its not the company, its the people who make or break things. At the end of the day, the customer wins the war, since it will fuel innovation and more people will jump in, keeping the hope for a better future alive, for ever.
The key here is the corporate user and the most important thing today is security. Any new OS system who will give a significant better security that MS will win and the applications will move to it (banking, defense, health, government and others).
If the security is not improved , there is no reason to make the change which is very expensive and time consuming.
Google does not give anything in this area, so in the corporate market they will practical lose.
In the consumer area there are always some geeks who are trying new things or just hate MS, so a certain % will go to Google (from MS ? ).
The security is much more important than the habit, the UI, or the bunch of existing application.
So to summarize , MS is there for many years. Google OS, an additional buzzword in the news.
Linux wins from both!!
– Because it is the foundation of the Google OS distro
– The best choice you have to free yourself from “inside the Redmond Windows” for ever.
“Open Source and Computing Power (back) to the desktop and people”
I’m sure Google OS will have a pretty neat search functionality to it! 😉
Its difficult to say that who will win some battles, or who will make the kill in this war.
MS, has hardly been the first mover in any segment, if you choose to leave DOS as an exception. MS, has been a great follower of competition, and then slowly bettered itself (the concept of GUI was from Apple, it became Windows; Netscape was the browser king, now its almost dead; Oracle still holds on to its dominance, but MS SQL is not too far behind).
Suddenly, the ‘hunter’ has become the hunted ! ….
My guess ….. both of these companies will fight it out …. until, some other strong competitor steps in … then these shall merge.
Who cares.
I don’t think Chrome OS is a threat to Microsoft OS for due reasons.
1) it is still unknown to most of the world.
2) Like any OS Google are competing with Unix like OS & Microsoft, whereas these software are well mature and very tight grip on the users.
3) Chrome OS has long road to go until they come up with time machine (i.e. I mean back to the future) 😛
4) Even Chrome browser is still unpopular!
5) About cloud computing feature in Chrome OS, I think it sound FISHY but not Productive.