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The Google and Microsoft competition is escalating: Google announces new operating system. The operating system is expected to run on netbooks shipping in 2010. Google already has Android for mobile phones, so the move to PC-based system is an obvious direct challenge to Microsoft. With the exception of Bing, over the last several years, Microsoft has come across as a bumbling, clumsy organization trying to preserve a computing world that no longer exists. Consider Live. Or Mesh. Both initiatives were an attempt to innovate, but Microsoft is too tied to existing revenue models to be creative. Google, on the other hand, is well ahead in its ability to conceive a new world of computing and interaction. The announcement of Wave is a great example – a product that attempts to re-write interaction/collaboration based on today’s technologies, not those created decades ago. Google is exploring new territory. Microsoft is trying to defend what it has.
Of course, Google is also entering new territory with the OS initiative. Microsoft has decades of experience and established relationships with businesses and hardware manufacturers. The Microsoft ecosystem is strong and entrenched. Success is far from assured for Google. Writing an OS for a netbook is a much simpler task than writing an OS that works on a broad range of PCs in numerous complex organizational settings.
Other commentary:
Redefining the OS: “The new OS will focus entirely on the web: “The software architecture is simple — Google Chrome running within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel. For application developers, the web is the platform.” What that means is this. The browser is the platform. The browser is the UI.”
Google Blog: “Google Chrome OS is an open source, lightweight operating system that will initially be targeted at netbooks. Later this year we will open-source its code, and netbooks running Google Chrome OS will be available for consumers in the second half of 2010. Because we’re already talking to partners about the project, and we’ll soon be working with the open source community, we wanted to share our vision now so everyone understands what we are trying to achieve.”