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Google PC to Hit Walmart?
Fahrvergnuugen writes "According to latimes.com Google is set to launch the Google PC which will run Google's own operating system. From the article: 'Sources say Google has been in negotiations with Wal-Mart Stores Inc., among other retailers, to sell a Google PC. The machine would run an operating system created by Google, not Microsoft's Windows, which is one reason it would be so cheap -- perhaps as little as a couple of hundred dollars.'"
This is a piece of speculation that's inside a piece of gossip that's inside a bloody "Predictions for 2006" article.
Which isn't to say that it can't be true. But it feels like someone heard the phrase "Google OS" and made up a rumor without knowing what the phrase meant.
The United States of America: We do what we must because we can.
Google just needs to tweak a common free OS to be friendly to all their little sub-projects, in a manner similar to but more extensive than how Opera (the browser) now defaults to Google search. Even that will panic the drones at Microsoft, who are paranoid about Google anyway.
A truly excellent pizza parlor is a delight unto the heavens. Treasure the sauce and the toppings!
Windows XP is quite expensive from the OEM's. For example this supplier sells PCs with Windows and Linux. The Linux ones are 82 Euros (about $100) cheaper.
Given that you can buy PCs for $350, this is about 1/3 of the price.
The google pc MUST come with an "I'm Feeling Lucky" button somewhere on the keyboard or I'm not getting one.
liqbase
What OS will it run? GNU of course! - Google's Not Unix.
For the sake of his office furniture, let's hope Steve Ballmer realises it's only a rumour...
This is goofball Googlemania nonsense. There are serious copyright hurdles to this idea - just as legislation in this arena becomes ever more restrictive - to name but the first problem that presents itself on first blush. Also, the second someone buys their $199 Wal*Mart, 'Google PC' and it does not run their 4-year-old daughter's "Blue's Clues" and "Dora" CD-ROMs, it goes back - just like the LinSpire boxes did.
There are more people in MS who are under the spell of Google, than even these 'analysts': Look at Robert Scoble and Dare Obasanjo - tho' the latter seems to actually understand market sense. These ideas float out, with a hope of provoking an MS response that ends up diffusing effort.
Remember, Bear-Stearns and other investment analysts were the most gullible of the participants in dot-com hype. I was a "fly on the wall" in analyst's calls at Bear Stearns, at Reynolds and at Deloitte. They all smoked the same crack that MCI was pushing about 'Net expansion.
At investment and professional services firms, you have a crew of youngsters who cut their professional teeth on the Internet bubble. This is the baseline for their experience. They are now all out to find the next big thing - and they hope it's Google. Like Yahoo in '97, with profitability as the latest 'secret sauce'.
From monitoring this thread, you would think that Google posed as serious a challenge to Microsoft as AMD does to Intel in the microprocessor market.
It's B.S. Google is good at what they do and are looking to create the kind of continuing growth that justifies the absurd valuation the analysts have bestowed upon them. The only real concern for Microsoft is that the natural area for Google's expansion is a segment that we have also identified for growth.
"Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell
Would they buy a GoogleBox, that allows them to access their web mail, google office (assuming its not a myth) and various web sites "without a computer", and all they have to do is hook it up to a DSL/Cable line and a power line?
Sure, just like they bought all those "internet appliances" and "web terminals" which were supposed to be the next big thing a few years ago and now go for peanuts on eBay.
Actually, as poor a description as "moving videos between a PC and a TV set" is, it is actually a great idea for something like this. Nobody is ever going to be able to market a PC with a non-windows OS for the reason you mentioned - (almost) everything on the market requires Windows. However, by offering what is essentially a fully-functioning PC with say, Linux, but not positioning it as a PC, it would better have the ability to get into people's homes.
By not positioning it as a replacement for a Windows PC, but as an additional accessory, it doesn't have to replace every esoteric piece of software available for Windows. However, if these devices become popular for their own specific "purpose", and have the ability to duplicate at least a large portion of the functionality of a Windows PC, the apps will fall into place as people demand them.
I think an important part of this equation is HDTV. The display's ability to offer a reasonably useful "computer" interface simply wasn't available with NTSC. Now, a box connected to an HDTV display, with a one piece wireless keyboard/trackball interface, could be a lot more palatable to people, than say the old WebTV.
Hopefully they won't screw it up like everyone else has.
Go into a Walmart, they have normally priced desktop computers there (500-700$, usually HP's) and laptops similarly slightly higher. They also have TVs that cost more than that, and they sell them,too. Go out in the parking lot and look at the cars there, it's not all 15 year old junkers. You might have a biased viewpoint about who shops at walmart. At my local one, one of the few places that have computers around here (rural area), you can see everything from 45,000$ pickups in the lot to Priuses the the latest high end Japanese rice rockets like Lexuses and Infinitys.
I think you have a case of urban elitism. while you weren't looking, computers have gone mainstream, because they just aren't that hard to deal with, either operating them or building them. it's a ho-hum skill now as in nothing special. Walmart even sells some upgrade parts on the shelf, meaning that people are savvy enough to open the box and replace components. Oh and Noes, being a computer user means you don't have to be a white collar urban dweller any longer.
This is 2006, not 1986 after all. Being a computer user by itself is no longer automatically leet, it's become as common as can be. It's a normal human endeavor, walmart sells whatever sells, that's all. Just because you (anyone you, just generally speasking) might shop at an all electronic store does not make you any more intelligent or capable that someone who shops at a walmart. You go where the deals are in todays world, end of story. I personally don't like walmart from a socio/economic model, but I won't deny that they carry a wide range of products at various pricing levels, and cater to most of the consumer population out there. Probably over 90% of people who shop will hit a walmart at least once in awhile, street people to millionaires.