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Google vs. Microsoft On the Desktop

Posted by timothy on from the rules-of-engagement dept.

Michael_Curator writes "Gary Edwards, president of the now-defunct Open Document Foundation, helps sort out the challenges Google faces displacing Microsoft on the desktop, pitting the strengths of Microsoft's proprietary stack against the developer candy that HTML 5 represents."

14 of 222 comments (clear)

  1. Take away the cloud by Darkness404 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    What I think would be best for Google would be to fork a version of OOo to include "Save to the cloud" support and integration with Google Docs. Along with integration with every e-mail client by using perhaps HTML e-mail or a plugin to enable Google Docs support. Create an iPhone app, plugins for MS Office, make it easy for anyone with any program to access and use Google Docs and it will succeed.

    --
    Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
    1. Re:Take away the cloud by lanswitch · · Score: 2, Interesting

      most people don't know what a server or cloud is. they don't even care. all they want is that they can find their documents.
      i guess it will go like this: "if i store it on the cloud/server/whatever, it's not always there, but if i put it in 'My Documents', it's always available. so i'll store it on 'My Documents""

    2. Re:Take away the cloud by rtfa-troll · · Score: 3, Interesting

      You are of course right in theory; But this is a typical case that "in theory theory is the same as practice; in practice things are different". HTML has somehow managed to get the right balance to be much better than other applications. Primarily, there are no viruses written in HTML and HTML+Java(ECMA)script has almost no practical viruses.

      The key advantages of HTML / ECMAscript / HTTP include

      • not blocked at the corporate firewall
      • has a subset which is pure data and easy to be sure is safe
      • has a subset which is compatible across many different platforms for many different years
      • is not controlled directly by a company with criminal tendancies

      Every other option has serious drawbacks

      • Java / .Net - too heavy; the minimal application requires loads of extra stuff
      • Java / .Net / C++ - non trivial to package.
      • C++ / .exe - too much history with trojans / too much incompatibility e.g. try developing one for Windows 200 working on Vista; compare with
      • Anything which doesn't go over ports 80 or 443 - blocked by the firewall
      • Anything containing executable content - blocked by the corporate mail filter
      • .Net stuff - doesn't run on out of the box Ubuntu or Macintosh / not cross platform.

      Disclosure: I'm currently interning at MS.

      your honesty is appreciated. When you are just starting in the job market, any good job seems like a good idea. Please remember you have years and years of work, ahead. Taking ethical choices is a seriously good idea. When your CEO is threatening your president with firing you then you seriously should consider if that's a company you want to work for.

      --
      =~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
    3. Re:Take away the cloud by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      You don't really think local internal storage is more reliable than the cloud?

      Most users really don't have raids nor proper backup. I feel my documents are much more secure (and accessible) in my gmail than on my disk partition (come to count it, currently I have 9! not counting numerous USB disks or flash cards). And each can die moment, and I don't even think to start taking care of backuping them all up. Even if they don't die, get rewritten or formatted I will add or replace another computing device and migrating is always a pain, even for me.

      Number of PCs per user is only going up, and the cloud is the only solution to the data mess that comes with.
      And with smartphones and blackberries things get even better if you opt for the cloud.

      I agree speed does not seem to be an issue (I still waste more time locating / browsing for my documents than it takes me to move them across the net).

      Internet connection is reliable as electricity or mobile networks (if not more so :-) and we are so depended on it anyway (probably more than we are aware) that it does not make sense to constrain and lock down your documents with no clear benefit.

      All my data on disks, diskettes, cdroms, printouts from 10 years are lost or destroyed except for my online home space at my ex college and my geocities page (oh wait, that's gone too :).

    4. Re:Take away the cloud by YttriumOxide · · Score: 5, Interesting

      True story though - I was showing a member of the younger generation a floppy disk that I had lying around, and the first thing he said was, "ah, it looks like the 'save' icon!". To many of the younger generation, the icon is an abstract concept meaning "save", not a representation of a disk.

      --
      My book about LSD and Self-Discovery
      Also on facebook as: DroppingAcidDaleBewan
    5. Re:Take away the cloud by sorak · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I use four different computers on a weekly basis, and on one of them, I cannot install software. So, it's not just about platform. It's also about being able to go to any random "box" and access your documents.

      Of course I should probably use Google docs more, but my night job is teaching Office 2007, which means having to get used to all the changes they made since XP.

      Integration plugins would be nice, however. I am currently using ftp to sync the different systems, and would like something simpler.

  2. Here's what Google needs by bogaboga · · Score: 5, Interesting

    To give Microsoft something to seriously think about, Google needs an OS on the desktop. Android is a good start in my opinion. There are some efforts in this direction already. The good thing is that Android eschews X, which is a pain to work with in its current form.

    Next, they will need [meaningful] applications that work no matter what platform one happens to be using.

    Third, targeting Microsoft must not be the aim, it must be the unplanned outcome. The aim must be tp "please" we the users.

    That way, Google will succeed on the desktop.

    1. Re:Here's what Google needs by node+3 · · Score: 1, Interesting

      This:

      Android eschews X

      and this:

      Third, targeting Microsoft must not be the aim, it must be the unplanned outcome. The aim must be tp "please" we the users.

      Are the two most critical things that needs to happen for Linux to begin to take on significant market share. These are two of the biggest influences on the increasing success of Mac OS X.

  3. Re:More Automated Spam? by Max+Littlemore · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Yep. I reckon we need a "-5 SPAM moderation".

    --
    I don't therefore I'm not.
  4. OS-less netbook by OutputLogic · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Hypothetically speaking, if there is a powerful Java processor that runs Java Virtual Machine (JVM) in hardware, and a browser application written in Java, you'd get an OS-less netbook

    - OutputLogic

  5. Cloud vs Desktop? Aren't they the same? by caywen · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Isn't the deskop really just the next evolution of the cloud? Once the desktop becomes an active participant in the cloud? I think the next step will simply be to make all your desktop apps available anywhere. We're just about there already with remote desktop connections. Isn't the path of remote desktops and virtualization just as valid a distributed computing model? In the future, there might be so much bandwidth and parallel computing power available, a single server could serve remote connections to thousands of simultaneous virtual Win7/OSX/Linux machines. And you won't have to actually rewrite OpenOffice 10.0 for web.

  6. Amazingly we should side with... Microsoft! by Nicopa · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The standard desktop is better than Google desktop. Yes, everybody says, to put Google in a good light: "standard compliant" browsers, but that means nonstandard compliant mail, nonstandard everything else. We won't own software, we'll be always customers, dumb terminals, served from huge company's "clouds". Free software will be over, irrelevant. We won't be able to improve and modify our environment, we can't improve Gmail ourselves, there's no alternative/better/innnovative client for Gmail.

    Economic forces are taking technology down a terrible path. The past is better: a world of protocols, servers and clients. A common neutral space...

    The "portable" desktop, having your data everywhere should be solved by other means... I don't know, perhaps we should have personal servers, or at least we should contract personal servers from some kind of "personal server providers", which should be a standard and non-monopolistic thing. The "presence providers" envisioned by the XMPP protocol comes to mind...

  7. Re:I'll give this much to Google by X0563511 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    You realize that preprocessor "orgy" happens anyways, just behind the scenes? And that if you used a proper IDE, you get the same "blinders" that MS-VS gives you?

    And if that is your only complaint - the tools, then I challenge how you can call yourself a developer. Have you SEEN the Windows API? Now... thinking of that, have you seen glibc?

    Please forgive me if I'm wrong, but from what you've given us, I'm hesitant to take anything you've said seriously.

    --
    For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
  8. Re:Correction... by bami · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The thing I hate about webstart (happened to me at least), is that it really "installs" software, it adds registery keys and adds a program to the software panel in the configuration panel in Windows.
    I'm all for java or webapplications, but that is where it crossed the line for me. Not to mention the prompt in firefox.