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Microsoft vs. Google — Mutually Assured Destruction

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the pieces-are-everywhere dept.

jmcbain writes "Robert X. Cringely asserts that nothing good will come out of the ongoing war between Microsoft and Google: 'The battle between Microsoft and Google entered a new phase last week with the announcement of Google's Chrome Operating System — a direct attack on Microsoft Windows. This is all heady stuff and good for lots of press, but in the end none of this is likely to make a real difference for either company or, indeed, for consumers. It's just noise — a form of mutually assured destruction intended to keep each company in check.'"

78 of 416 comments (clear)

  1. First Nuclear Weapon Equipped Post by billstewart · · Score: 4, Funny

    Kaboom!

    --

    Bill Stewart
    New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
    1. Re:First Nuclear Weapon Equipped Post by Gay+for+Linux · · Score: 3, Informative

      The issue here is less whether competition or good or bad (competition is good) but whether a downward spiral of free crap (see Office being given away online) will reduce in loss-leaders that kill both business models leaving everyone bust.

      Hence nuclear software wasteland.

    2. Re:First Nuclear Weapon Equipped Post by Chyeld · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Actually the issue is less "will free crap ruin us" and is more "will pointless free crap, just released in an attempt to shore up eroding market share ruin us". And the answer is, yes. But as only one of the companies involved is attempting to make up their costs for giving stuff away for free by doing it in 'volume' and the other is using free stuff to expand their actual revenue stream, the posited scenario is a straw man.

    3. Re:First Nuclear Weapon Equipped Post by Tolkien · · Score: 2, Funny

      Gah. I read that as "Nukular". Curse you Bush! *shakes fist*

      --
      how is babby formed?
    4. Re:First Nuclear Weapon Equipped Post by pin0chet · · Score: 4, Interesting

      What's so bad about the emergence of "free crap?" Gmail, Google Earth, Bing, Hulu, Google Docs are all pretty solid services considering the price tag...

    5. Re:First Nuclear Weapon Equipped Post by Shakrai · · Score: 2, Informative

      What's so bad about the emergence of "free crap?" Gmail, Google Earth, Bing, Hulu, Google Docs are all pretty solid services considering the price tag...

      And at least one of those (Hulu) probably isn't going to survive as a free service due to the expense of providing it.

      --
      I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
      We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
    6. Re:First Nuclear Weapon Equipped Post by gb506 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Well, it isn't only GWB - Jimmy Carter, too, mispronounced the word in the exact same fashion. The difference is that while Bush was never associated with nuclear powerplants or propulsion in any way, the same cannot be said of Carter, as he was in the middle of U.S. Navy nuclear powerplant operator training when his father died, an event which caused Carter to resign his Navy commission. In other words, Bush may have consistently mangled the word, and that's bad, but not nearly as bad as Carter mangling it when he most certainly knew better and should have had the habit knocked out by Rickover's crew. Carter's the bigger dolt in this case.

    7. Re:First Nuclear Weapon Equipped Post by Shakrai · · Score: 2, Insightful

      He's a tard for pointing out that the guy who was trained in nuclear technology should have known better than the guy who got the 'C' average from Yale and whose main accomplishment prior to elective office was running a few businesses into the ground? Sounds like we should be waiting for your troll moderation :)

      --
      I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
      We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
    8. Re:First Nuclear Weapon Equipped Post by Chyeld · · Score: 3, Insightful

      As long as you have a point to it, nothing. But if you are doing it just 'because all the cool kids are' then eventually you are going to have to face the realization that you still need to be able to make money to pay for it.

      Google, despite their rep for dipping a finger in everything, tends to have a fairly reasonable track record for having a plan to monetize their services.

      Microsoft, on the other hand, seems to just shit things out and hope enough people will like it and use it.

      Bing is what, their fifth go at being a search engine? Not once actually having any sense of what they wanted to be other than a "Google-killer", even before Google 'needed' killing.

      Thats the problem. Microsoft is the proverbial monkey throwing feces at the wall to see what sticks. And the problem with that is if Microsoft decides something you like isn't sticking well enough, well it's off to the chopping block again and lets hope the next iteration is something you can at least stand.

    9. Re:First Nuclear Weapon Equipped Post by gbarules2999 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Woosh!

    10. Re:First Nuclear Weapon Equipped Post by Trails · · Score: 2, Insightful

      A happy medium will always be found between the cost of supplying a service and the desire to pay for a service. If ad-supported can't cut it, and no one wants to pay, the happy medium is the death of the service.

    11. Re:First Nuclear Weapon Equipped Post by supernova_hq · · Score: 2, Interesting

      If it came down to both survivor or both dieing, I would honestly chose for both of them to die.

      There will be another Google, there is no doubt about that. If they went down new companies would emerge to replace the parts that google left behind.

      Microsoft on the other hand is a monolothic bully who's practices are destroying the computer industry and need to be taken down, even if that price is Google

      Saying that, I also highly doubt Google is going to fail, but if Microsoft goes down I will cheer gleefully no matter the fate of Google.

  2. Dear Mr Cringley by linumax · · Score: 4, Funny

    The phenomenon you are witnessing is also known as competition in some circles. It has been known to exist in the world of business for a very very long time.

    1. Re:Dear Mr Cringley by jmyers · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Of course if you read the article, I know it is a lot to ask, you will find that he is not talking about competition. For the very short summary.

      MS Makes money from Windows and Office.
      Google makes money from search based advertising.
      Nothing else really matters to either company.

      MS attempts at the search ad market and Google's attempts are the OS market are not intended to succeed. They are just the corporate equivalent or "be nice to me or I will fuck your girlfriend". Both side know the other has no chance, but the media loves to talk about it.

    2. Re:Dear Mr Cringley by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      why?

      why cant google create a successful operating system? would it be so out of the realm of possibility to see "google os" displayed alongside microsoft windows, in shrink-wrap packaging, at your local best buy? and perhaps significantly cheaper, and catering to a certain market who do not require Office but simply internet access with a few applications?

    3. Re:Dear Mr Cringley by poetmatt · · Score: 3, Interesting

      If you think companies don't diversify, you are horribly mistaken.

      Do you think that Kraft foods only makes cheese for example? Companies diversify into similar fields.

      From a consumer point of view you are dead correct in that you are oblivious to the other dealings of many companies. MS makes money from things other than windows and office. Lots of other things. If that was all they did, they'd go broke. They make money off programming deals, etc. The closest thing to say about MS and google is: they both profit from software, internet, and hardware. Thus isn't not even expanding their capability, just more work in a field they already work in.

      MS attempts at search have been horrible as they haven't improved anything and have been using them to hide data (look up situations involving bing on that - search anything that is negative about MS). I'm not saying google's attempts at an OS are going to be 100 % successful (as nobody can predict the future with an uneducated guess), but android is optimized for ARM, so it actually makes sense to create a separate OS. Plus, they have a ton of programmers?

      Wow, when MS said they had something to announce monday, I didn't think it'd be an article full of spin.

    4. Re:Dear Mr Cringley by scubamage · · Score: 4, Insightful

      What is this commie liberal pinko "competition" bs. This is the United States of America. Everyone knows that capitalism works by litigating your competitors into oblivion, not by creating better products and services. Why, just look at the telephone, cable, satellite, and **AA providers.

    5. Re:Dear Mr Cringley by Extremus · · Score: 2, Insightful

      They are just the corporate equivalent or "be nice to me or I will fuck your girlfriend"

      Indeed. If you look closer, everything in the world is about having sex, in an way or another.

    6. Re:Dear Mr Cringley by Kierthos · · Score: 2, Insightful

      It's not that Google can't or couldn't create a successful operating system... it's that for the vast majority of Windows users, they're not going to switch OS's. Let's face it... a large chunk of the common users of the world are not suddenly going to go "Aha! I'll switch to Linux!" They're relatively happy and comfortable with an OS that they are familiar with. It's much the same with corporate customers. They go with Microsoft products, not necessarily because they're the best, but because when they upgrade it tends to require the least amount of retraining time as compared to learning an entirely new line of software products.

      Likewise, Microsoft can create a search engine, but that doesn't mean that people are going to abandon Google in droves, simply because it's developed by Microsoft. Google has the market share... something like two-thirds of all web searches (at least in the U.S.) are done through Google. Hell, it's been a verb for years now. "Let me google that and get back to you." Is 'Bing' going to get that same level of brand awareness? No. But Microsoft is not that concerned if it does. Sure, they'd like it to, but they're not going to lose any sleep if it doesn't steal a good-sized chuck of Google's market share.

      --
      Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
    7. Re:Dear Mr Cringley by ajs · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Of course if you read the article, I know it is a lot to ask, you will find that he is not talking about competition.

      Of course not. This is Robert X. Cringely. He's talking about "war ... destruction ... horrible nasty ... look at the bones!"

      He's a loud, but relatively uninsightful prognosticator of tech markets. Nothing to see here.

      More to the point, he's wrong. Microsoft and Google aren't involved in a "war", they're involved in a re-alignment of the market. Google is attempting to assert that the market for operating systems is so moot that there's no longer a value in productizing the OS itself so much as the service of maintaining it. Microsoft is asserting that "uhh... we can do search just as well as Google did 5 years ago. So there."

      Feel free to select your "winner" in this non-war.

    8. Re:Dear Mr Cringley by AKAImBatman · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's not that Google can't or couldn't create a successful operating system... it's that for the vast majority of Windows users, they're not going to switch OS's.

      If there's anything I've learned from the current browser war, it's that the best way to take down Microsoft is not another monopoly, but healthy competition.

      i.e. FireFox has done a bang-up job in being a strong competitor to Internet Explorer. Yet it remained fairly niche until Safari, Opera, and Chrome all worked there way into people's lives.
      They're all still niches in of themselves, but they add up to a whole that presents a serious competition to Microsoft. Worse yet, they've captured enough marketshare to where the idea of IE being the "only option" has mostly gone the way of the dodo.

      Competition for Windows will need to be the same. No one Operating System will dethrone it. Not Linux, not OS X, not Google Chrome OS. But together, in competition, they can become more than the sum of their parts.

      --
      Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
    9. Re:Dear Mr Cringley by Shakrai · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Of course, the whole point of a Doomsday Machine is lost, if you *keep* it a *secret*! Why didn't you tell the world, EH?
      It was to be announced at the Party Congress on Monday. As you know, the Premier loves surprises.

      --
      I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
      We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
    10. Re:Dear Mr Cringley by Orange+Crush · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Because Google are not planning to eat their own dogfood on this one - the people creating Chrome OS aren't going to be using it. I mean, at least Google employees actually use Android phones.

      Why do you think they won't use it? I'd venture a guess that a good number of Googlers have or want to get netbooks, but feel the user-experience and OS could be improved upon, and that's the whole reason they're bothering. Remember, Google doesn't intend to sell an operating system. They just want more people to get online more conveniently, because THAT'S where their money comes from.

    11. Re:Dear Mr Cringley by rgviza · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I'm still not sure why anyone thinks that anyone else who makes an OS is out to "take down Microsoft".

      I assure you that people that build their own OS are out to build a better OS, not take down another company. Let's face it, there's a lot to be desired with any of the OS's currently on the market, and most serve a niche. Their developers aren't trying to take down anyone. Apple is closer than anyone else to a perfect OS, but it has it's own set of issues, like closed ecosystem and only officially runs on Apple hardware.

      Maybe Google thinks it can do a better job. Hopefully, for all of us, they succeed. It would cause Microsoft etc. to step up their game resulting in better OSs for everyone from all of the software companies that build them.

      Competition is good for all of us, including Microsoft.

      -Viz

      --
      Don't kid yourself. It's the size of the regexp AND how you use it that counts.
    12. Re:Dear Mr Cringley by hey! · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Well, I did read the article, and I have to say it didn't exactly meet high standards of analytical brilliance.

      There's a very simple reason for Microsoft to try search business away from Google. If Google makes money at it, then so can Microsoft.

      On the other hand, the idea that Google's Chrome OS is going to be a threat to MS Windows on the desktop anytime soon is fantasy. Think about Android. Android is a fascinating OS, but it hasn't taken the phone world by storm -- yet.

      I think that Google may be more interested in defining the capabilities of classes of devices. The thing about laptops and desktops is that the platform vendor is not in the capability limiting business. On a mobile phone, it is, because people don't pay for most of their phones. The carriers do, and the carriers are interested in things like lock-in and preventing competition with network services by software using generic network services. Android, I think, is an attempt to liberalize controls on what mobile devices can do.

      Likewise in the great spectrum auction, Google tried to leverage their participation into a change of the auction's rules.

      So, putting on my wildass speculation hat for a moment, I am lead to wonder whether the Chrome operating system is an attempt to alter the course of the netbook space away from devices that are artificially constrained, and possibly which tie users to specific networks and service providers. One can imagine a version of Windows for netbooks carefully constrained so it doesn't undermine the main Windows product, and which tries to funnel users toward Bing. Given Microsoft's clout with manufacturers, they could well launch such a device. It could be sold at very low margins from Microsoft's perspective because it would generate a regular revenue stream.

      That kind of closed world is bad for Google. It doesn't have to take the world by storm with these offerings, it just has to tip developments in the right places to keep the world open. A straight-jacketed version of Windows XP that funnels users to MS services but is cheap to put on a netbook might seem like a good deal to a manufacturer, but not if they have to put their systems up against a more open one.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
  3. M.A.D. by Gerafix · · Score: 4, Funny

    The only way to win is... CTRL+ALT+DELETE

    1. Re:M.A.D. by mu51c10rd · · Score: 5, Funny

      The only way to win is... to not install either OS?

  4. It's dirty software I tells you dagnabbit! by Drakkenmensch · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Edison used to say that Tesla's newfangled alternating current was dangerous, unstable and just plain dirty electricity. I guess that's why a hundred years later, we don't use it anymo- oh wait.

  5. Competition by wisnoskij · · Score: 4, Insightful

    How is competition between brands not good for the customer?

    --
    Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
  6. war by brenddie · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Nothing like a little war to advance the state of technology.

    --
    The best test environment is production. - Me
    chrome://browser/content/browser.xul
  7. Mutually Assured Destruction? I think not... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I don't think the author of the summary understands the meaning of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD).

    If the MAD policy were in effect and "shots" were being fired, both companies would fall...

    If by MAD the author presumes that Google will somehow be able to use its operating system as an assault on Windows, that would also assume that Microsoft could/would use Windows as an assault on Google AND since Google cannot reciprocate in kind, Microsoft would somehow have the ability to kill off Google currently. The day Microsoft hardcodes into Windows the inability to access Google, that'll be the day Microsoft Windows officially begins its death spiral...

    I just don't see this analogy making sense...

    1. Re:Mutually Assured Destruction? I think not... by Andr+T. · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Me neither.

      What Google s chief executive, Eric Schmidt, has to fear more than anything else is that heâ(TM)ll awake one day to learn that the Google search engine suddenly doesn t work on any Windows computers: something happened overnight and what worked yesterday doesnâ(TM)t work today. It would have to be an act of deliberate sabotage on Microsoft s part and blatantly illegal, but that doesnâ(TM)t mean it couldn t happen. Microsoft would claim ignorance and innocence and take days, weeks or months to reverse the effect, during which time Google would have lost billions.

      Does he _really_ think Microsoft would do that? How? Some intentionally broken windows update? If they really could do that (and I don't think it's possible in any way), and if they really did that, then:

      1 - Google and people all around the world would figure out ways of making google work again in any Windows computer.

      2 - Microsoft would drown itself in legal issues in no time.

      --

      Any life is made up of a single moment, the moment in which a man finds out, once and for all, who he is.

    2. Re:Mutually Assured Destruction? I think not... by spyrochaete · · Score: 4, Insightful

      In the conclusion of the article the author talks about how Google and Microsoft will not defeat each other, but some third player will storm in with innovative new ideas and steal the show. It's more like Mutually Assured Distraction in that they will be blindsided by some up-and-comer who is more in tune with what end users really need.

    3. Re:Mutually Assured Destruction? I think not... by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 4, Insightful
      Even if they pulled it off, breaking into an OS market dominated by a single player with a huge entrenched base of applications is hard, and even Google may find it more trouble than it's worth. Google may seem huge and unstoppable, but even they have their limits.

      The idea is not really get a huge market share on corporate sector. It is just to play havoc with Microsoft's standard strategy of forcing upgrades, changing file formats to continue the vendor lock etc. Once Firefox got just 10% market share the web sites started coding for the standards and stopped special hacks for IE and IE's market share came tumbling down.

      Once ChromeOS establishes a net presence and demands interoperability with ExchangeServer, ExchangeServer will have to become standard compliant. iPhone could do that, but Apple is more likely to make a deal with Microsoft and get a special closed API support from MSFT leaving others to lurch.

      Once google docs, and other office replacements reach a market share of about 10%, and they interact with some 10% of the established MsOffice users and demand compatibility and interoperability, maintaining vendor lock by the traditional methods of API changes, file format changes, mysterious bugs that affect others but not Microsoft etc would not fly.

      When Microsoft products follow open standards and are interoperable, the profit margins will shrink. That is the only way for Google to survive. As long as Microsoft has cash cows, it will be able undercut competition drive them out of business and resume business as usual. That is the threat Google is fighting off.

      --
      sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
    4. Re:Mutually Assured Destruction? I think not... by tibman · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I think if Google ever does decide to go after Windows directly, they'll find that a real full-featured modern operating system (not just a glorified web browser) is a lot more difficult to create than they think.

      They are going to use the Linux kernel with their own Xserver and windowing system (afaik). Using the linux kernel is going to save them untold amounts of development time. So they are basically making a Distro and not an OS. This gives google a huge application pool to draw from. They can pick the applications they like and rework the UIs or whatever they want to suit their own needs (provided they follow the lisense and publish modified code or whatever). It also means google will ensure that their apps will run inside a linux environment (Chrome Browser and whatever else comes along). This is a very exciting time for linux fans.

      --
      http://soylentnews.org/~tibman
  8. Right.... by Darkness404 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    or, indeed, for consumers. It's just noise -- a form of mutually assured destruction intended to keep each company in check

    How is it MAD? MS, try as it might, simply can't make a search engine that is going to be used more than Google's. Google will still lose out to Windows on a few things even with Chrome OS, for one being the large amount of specialty applications out there for Windows.

    --
    Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
  9. Chrome OS being open source... by Lord+Satri · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Sure, consumers won't care at first, but the fact that Chrome OS is open source will have, in my opinion, a long term impact on the industry and thus eventually the consumers. Sorry, I would bet Cringely is wrong on that one.

    --
    Animoog.org
  10. Is cringley a microsoft shill ? by unity100 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    honestly, i dont know whether if he is. he surely sounds like one.

    --
    Read radical news here
  11. And Bing...? by openfrog · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Are not Ballmer intentions to destroy Google notorious ("I will fucking kill them")?

    Why should launching a Web OS for netbooks be considered a declaration of war, while launching a search engine (Bing) be considered business as usual?

    As another poster wrote, this is called competition and let the better OS win.

    1. Re:And Bing...? by sorak · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Why should either be a declaration of war? And what's with this comment about microsoft hard-coding Windows to not allow people to use Google (what, are they so desperate to get rid of Google that they will block Google's IP addresses, or has Cringely never heard of Firefox?)
      .
      This whole thing sounds like a paranoid conspiracy theory, written by a fifteen year-old schoolgirl who just saw a Veronica Mars marathon.

    2. Re:And Bing...? by networkconsultant · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Bing still sucks, all be it less than the last microsoft search what was it "Life? Live? Electrical?" I forget I guess I'll have to google it.

    3. Re:And Bing...? by ignavus · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Microsoft does not compete. Microsoft kills, destroys, eliminates, obliterates. It does not compete.

      Google is simply aware that to exist it must fight.

      As long as MS owns the desktop, it will try to leverage that to funnel users into Microsoft products and services and away from its competitors.

      Of course, Google tries to do the same thing, as does Apple. Which is why I avoid proprietary OSs - they think they own you.

      FOSS is a gift. Proprietary software is a baited hook.

      --
      I am anarch of all I survey.
  12. Spy vs Spy by CodeBuster · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Does this whole thing remind anyone else of Spy vs Spy? From TFA: "But companies, like people, strive and dream and in this case both dream, at least sometimes, of destroying the other. Only they can't -- or won't -- do it in the end, because it is against the interests of either company to do so."

  13. Re:I hope Microsoft gets stuffed by Google by DavidR1991 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    A monopoly is not just the lack of substitute (or competing) goods - it's about the lack of viable competing goods. So in this case, MS still fits the bill (e.g. Being the most popular platform, and with the win32 API being very heavily embedded in many products, targeting Windows is the only viable option for a lot of companies. It doesn't necessarily mean it's the only one)

  14. How riduculous by oodaloop · · Score: 4, Insightful
    FTFA:

    The vast majority of Google searches are, of course, done on PCs running Microsoft Windows and Internet Explorer. It is not in Googleâ(TM)s real interest to displace these products, which have facilitated so much of its success.

    So Google doesn't make money from people running other OS's? Google ads don't appear in my browser when I'm running Ubuntu? Would the Google Chrome OS or browser presumably block its own ads? Now I understand why this has the tag diecringleydie.

    --
    Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
    1. Re:How riduculous by crazybilly · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Agreed. That (nonsensical) line pretty much ruined the article for me.

      Explain to me again how competing for OS and browser share is against Google's interests...because the fact that people use them to look at the internet seems like a pretty poor reason.

  15. Re:not good? by Ethanol-fueled · · Score: 3, Funny

    Oh, please. Google OS is a glorified web browser tailored to netbooks. It won't even make a scratch on Windows' entrenchment in the desktop market.

  16. RTFA by masmullin · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I think Cringely's point is that it isn't real competition. Cringely is stating that a cold war of sorts exists between the two companies. Google points it's missiles (chrome browser, chrome OS) at MS, while MS points missiles back (Bing).

    Cringely is stating that if one company decided to REALLY attack the other, they would start throwing serious resources into the projects (rather than 20 or 30 engineers they'd throw hundreds), and basically eat each others lunch.

  17. Chrome OS and Bing by Dracos · · Score: 2, Funny

    Mutually assured distraction?

  18. Security an issue with Chrome? by gubers33 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Robert Hansen found a flaw in the first day of using it that Chrome allows Javascript to run in View Source, meaning you can't check potentially harmful pages without Javascript running off. Didn't Chrome market itself as the most secure browser? Anyway IE, Firefox, Safari and Opera all caught this, yet Google missed it with Chrome. I'm sure their new operating system will have tons of neat features just like their browser, but will they miss out on the security end again while boasting they are the most secure? I'll still with my Ubuntu and Firefox for now thank you and avoid both Microsoft and Googles security flaws.

    --
    Just because you are wrong and I called you out on it doesn't mean I am a Troll.
  19. Re:not good? by Chyeld · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Oh, please. Google OS is a glorified web browser tailored to netbooks. It won't even make a scratch on Windows' entrenchment in the desktop market.

    Today...

  20. Cringe-worthy analysis by Renderer+of+Evil · · Score: 4, Interesting

    What Google's chief executive, Eric Schmidt, has to fear more than anything else is that he'll awake one day to learn that the Google search engine suddenly doesn't work on any Windows computers: something happened overnight and what worked yesterday doesn't work today. It would have to be an act of deliberate sabotage on Microsoft's part and blatantly illegal, but that doesn't mean it couldn't happen. Microsoft would claim ignorance and innocence and take days, weeks or months to reverse the effect, during which time Google would have lost billions.

    Jesus.

    This is like bad science fiction, written before the internet was invented - by Dan Brown. Cringely is such a tool.

  21. Re:I hope Microsoft gets stuffed by Google by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    A shame that a lot of the products people are looking for tend to be primarily Windows-only, which make those viable options, unviable.

  22. Chrome OS Direct Attack on Windows by Junior+J.+Junior+III · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Here's what would be a "direct attack" on Windows:

    Attempting to hack into Microsoft's corporate intranet and delete the source code and documentation for Windows.
    Releasing into the wild malware that targets windows installed base and destroys systems that run Windows.

    Taking on a project to come up with your own operating system isn't an attack on Windows. It's competition. Windows doesn't have any inherent right to its marketshare.

    --
    You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
  23. Re:I hope Microsoft gets stuffed by Google by i_ate_god · · Score: 2

    Until Adobe and Steinberg and Native Instruments and EA and Valve and id Software and M-Audio and Boss and Tascam and Alesis and Mackie and Blizzard all start to support Linux development, Linux will never be a viable alternative.

    Linux is a great OS for basic stuff. That's why it makes a lot of gains in netbooks, because that's a computer for simple stuff. Beyond that, where are the games? the multimedia production? driver support?

    Let me be clear, this is not the fault of Linux, this is the fault of third parties. But until those third parties see a valid reason for porting their software and hardware drivers to work with Linux, it can't ever be a fully viable alternative to Windows.

    --
    I'm god, but it's a bit of a drag really...
  24. Re:not good? by clang_jangle · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Oh, please. Google OS is a glorified web browser tailored to netbooks. It won't even make a scratch on Windows' entrenchment in the desktop market.

    Considering the huge number of users who know nothing but how to use a web browser, I think you're quite mistaken. I think it's very likely that Chrome OS will replace Windows for most non-geek consumers -- and because it's going to be open source, a lot of geeks will probably adopt it too.

    --
    Caveat Utilitor
  25. That's just crazy talk. by tjstork · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If it wasn't for Google Chrome and Firefox, we would still be using IE6.

    If it wasn't for Linux, there would probably not nearly the investment in Vista and Win7 that there has been.

    And, I guarantee you, that if there were no Linux free IDEs, there would be no Visual Studio Express. I doubly guarantee you, that, if there was no gcc, there would be no standards compliant C++ in Visual Studio.

    Google may not conquer the world with Chrome OS, and I think will ultimately lose to Microsoft, but, competition benefits everyone.

    What will Google do to bolster search to respond to Bing? How will Adobe respond to Silverlight... you can laugh at Silverlight 1.0, dismiss 2.0, but MS has away of just chugging away like the borg when they want to attack a market.

    It's all bound to keep people on their toes. What would be the alternative? A treaty between Google and Microsoft keeping each other in the browser and desktop, respectively? That would suck.

    --
    This is my sig.
  26. Makes more sense than Cringely lets on by Zigurd · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Chrome OS fills a number of needs. Whether these turn out to be the needs of end-users remains to be seen, but Chrome OS is not just some industry giants engaging in a slanging match:

    1. Chrome OS will help segment Atom from Pentium and Core. That's a pretty big need right there, for Intel, anyway.

    2. It could fill a not-yet-filled void: There is a very good chance Chrome will end up dominating netbook Linux the way Android is on the way to dominating handset Linux. Android is a really nice system, and deserves to win versus most other mobile Linux alternatives. Android is accelerating the use of Linux in handsets. Chrome might be that much better than other netbook Linuxes that it, too, ends up dominating and expanding it's market segment.

    3. OEMs have been porting Android to devices that may not be the best match for Android. Chrome OS is a better answer than diluting or de-focusing Android to make it a more universal OS.

    4. It completes the strategic picture for GWT, Gears, and Chrome: Google has a multi-layered strategy to make their applications run on any OS and any browser. If GWT and Gears on IE on Windows 7 are one end of the spectrum, Chrome OS is the other end. Microsoft has an OS platform where they can integrate search and the cloud and local applications. Now Google does, too.

    I would not be surprised to see an Android application runtime on Chrome OS, alongside the browser/JavaScript runtime.

    --
    I wrote parts of this stuff
  27. Re:I hope Microsoft gets stuffed by Google by wvmarle · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Yes there are competing products but most do not gain much (commercial) traction. Most companies don't gain much outside of their core businesses. And it is hard to come with a product that really can compete and dethrone a firmly entrenched player.

    However there are exceptions.

    A new browser came out, finally settled on the name "FireFox", and in a few years time got like 30% of the market.

    A new mobile phone came out of a company that had never ventured in the mobile phone market before, got a lot of hype, and now is the reference to which all other phones are compared. This is Apple's iPhone of course.

    Asus' EEEPC came out and virtually overnight created a new market, and now every manufacturer wants to have a cheap netbook on the market, in the 10" size range.

    So there are more examples. Google itself is one: without any advertising it became the de-facto standard for searching, the name even became even a verb.

    Who knows what this GoogleOS will do. Maybe it is really that much better than Windows. Google has the media attention already, that helps a lot to at least attract publicity. We are all expecting ARM processor based netbooks soon (prototypes have been demoed already), and Windows simply does not run on that processor. Whether ARM based netbooks/notebooks with GoogleOS or some Linux distro (e.g. NetBuntu) will make it remains to be seen. It would surprise me if it really makes a big impact on the market, though it would make things very interesting if it does.

  28. CRINGELY is an Idiot by mlwmohawk · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Ahh, there I said it. It feels good to say it.

    He's the broken clock of pundits, he's right twice a day, but only by accident.

    The problem with Google vs Microsoft is that Google should have made this move 6 years ago and it would have been in place to capitalize on the fiasco that is/was Vista.

    The advantage Google has over, say, Canonical with Ubuntu, ls that everyone knows who Google is, sheesh, its used as a verb. Google docs is getting some uptake in smaller companies. OpenOffice is getting some uptake in others. The economy is helping the lower cost alternatives. People with skills are losing jobs and turning to lower cost or free alternatives in order to make money contracting.

    Google can deal with Intuit, Adobe, and others to get their apps ported to Linux.

    Google has the resources to make it happen. To beat Microsoft on the desktop market. The question is will they?

  29. Re:isn't that a good thing? by David+Gerard · · Score: 3, Interesting

    "do no evil" appears in practice to mean "don't actively do evil, but if it just sorta happens, well, shit eh."

    --
    http://rocknerd.co.uk
  30. Re:I hope Microsoft gets stuffed by Google by EraserMouseMan · · Score: 2, Interesting

    MS has always had an ace in the hole that no other company has figured out so far. Make it easy and profitable for software developers. Ever heard of VB? How about VBA? How about .NET? DirectX? Visual Studio? MS makes it very appealing to write an app with MS technology.

    Apple? Everything is a major pain in the ass for developers when compared to the simplicity of developing for Windows.

    Google? Let's face it, even Java developers admit now that .NET is far superior, slick and better supported (and isn't getting kicked to the curb by it's creators). Google is still sticking with Java because it's the next best thing that isn't anchored to the evil MS.

    And btw, even the iPhone is a pain to develop for. The only reason we've seen 50,000 new apps being written for it since it came out is because you can actually make money writing a simple iFart application. Once developers are required to write useful apps that actually have some complexity the developers will start longing for the simplicity and power of the MS development stack again.

  31. Remember Windows on 90% Desktop by deanston · · Score: 3, Insightful

    People need to be reminded of this over and over to put things in perspective. Lots people are putting Google on a par with MSFT now and that is just plain wrong. Right now 90% of Google runs on top of Windows. It's like renting a lemonade stand inside a supermarket. I think most people misinterpret what Cringely is saying, or plain did not read the article. People are animals. Train them a certain way and they respond to your command. I've found Chrome unstable on Windows and Safari (both based on WebKit) much much slower on Windows than on a Mac. It would not take much for the Windows OS to somehow make using Google products so much harder and inconvenient, and people will switch back to using 90% all MSFT software and think there is actually fair competition. Google has to keep at more than just Search to ensure it has a reliable platform and venue for its search business.

  32. direct attack on Microsoft Windows by rs232 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    "The battle between Microsoft and Google entered a new phase last week with the announcement of Google's Chrome Operating System -- a direct attack on Microsoft Windows"

    Since when was the release of a new Operating System seen solely in terms of the producers of a mediocre GUI OS working out of Redmond. It also begs the question as to all the negative press about a yet to be delivered platform and the total silence regarding Apples offerings.

    --
    davecb5620@gmail.com
  33. Re:not good? by Goody · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Oh, please. Google OS is a glorified web browser tailored to netbooks. It won't even make a scratch on Windows' entrenchment in the desktop market.

    Considering the huge number of users who know nothing but how to use a web browser, I think you're quite mistaken. I think it's very likely that Chrome OS will replace Windows for most non-geek consumers -- and because it's going to be open source, a lot of geeks will probably adopt it too.

    And the same huge number of users when asked "what OS do you want on your new PC, Windows or Google Chrome?", will say "Windows" because they don't have a clue what an OS is and "Windows" sounds vaguely familiar. The only way the clueless masses will use it is if it's the only choice on a cool-looking netbook or laptop and they're hooked on the color of it.

    As far as I can tell, Google Chrome is a glorified web dumb terminal that some people will happen to run Linux apps on. Businesses won't flock to it because it will lack Windows application compatibility. Clueful home users won't use it for the same reason ("Hey, why can't I use iTunes on this laptop or pull pictures from my Kodak camera using their Windows application???")

    I like open source just as much as the next guy here and I'd love to see a competitor to Windows, but my need to get work done supersedes my desire to make a statement about open software. With what we currently know, the Google Chrome OS is as much a competitor to Windows as Google Docs and Gmail is to Microsoft Office and Outlook/Exchange.

    --
    Tired of being "punished" by the Slashdot $rtbl since 2002. I'm now over at http://soylentnews.org/ .
  34. Modes of Destruction by Colonel+Korn · · Score: 2, Insightful

    MS would perish were their OS and Office sales to plummet. If the stars lined up for them, Google (or more likely someone else) do this with a competing product over many years.

    Google would perish were a large proportion of internet users to get savvy and block all their ads. I wonder whether MS could get away with adding adblocking to Windows that would eliminate all Google Ad revenue from MS-based products. That would probably get them in hot water, but easy access to addons for IE (assuming good adblockers exist for IE) with a suggestion to install the adblocker would maybe be a bit more feasible. To get away with it they'd have to sacrifice their own ad revenue as well, but unlike Google, they don't need it. Imagine MS killing the ad-funded web. How would web content change?

    --
    "I zero-index my hamsters" - Willtor (147206)
  35. MAD? Direct Attack? by Ephemeriis · · Score: 2, Insightful

    This is all heady stuff and good for lots of press, but in the end none of this is likely to make a real difference for either company or, indeed, for consumers. It's just noise â" a form of mutually assured destruction intended to keep each company in check.

    Mutually assured destruction? I believe the term you're looking for is "competition." It's that thing where multiple companies produce similar products and try to out-do each-other in an attempt to make people buy their products.

    The battle between Microsoft and Google entered a new phase last week with the announcement of Google's Chrome Operating System â" a direct attack on Microsoft Windows.

    How, exactly, is a glorified thin-client an attack on Microsoft Windows?

    Sure, a lot of stuff runs on the web these days... And I've argued that the trend will only continue... But this is like claiming that Wyse terminals are a direct attack on Dell's desktops.

    --
    "Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
  36. I would disagree by HangingChad · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Nothing else really matters to either company.

    In my opinion Google is much better positioned to gain future market share than MS. If you haven't had a chance to play around with GoogleVoice, you owe it to yourself to try it. The integration of the web, telephony and email. Amazing as it is now, they're just scratching the surface of the true potential.

    With Chrome, Google will be in a position to integrate email, telephony, productivity, social media interaction, photo and video management, all in a device that costs less than $200. With cloud services delivered in a browser window, the underlying OS is meaningless. Whether you use Chrome or Windows, you'll have access to the services, but Google will be able to offer them for less. Google doesn't depend on OS sales for a big chunk of revenue.

    MSFT's big strategy seems to be trying to carve enough fat off Windows to get it crammed into a small device, all that effort to offer users a slightly poorer version of what they have on their desktop. It's the same, slightly smaller candy bar in a different wrapper. Where's the innovation in that? MS has to work like mad just to stay relevant in the market.

    Take a look at Google Labs sometime and look at all the neat services they're working on. And what has MSFT come up with lately? A table that costs $10,000.

    In the fight between Google and MSFT, I'm putting my money on Google.

    --
    That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
  37. Re:I hope Microsoft gets stuffed by Google by The+Cisco+Kid · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The problem is a chicken and egg one. Until there is a critical mass of people using something other than Windows, most 'consumer' software (incl games) will only run on Windows. And until there is a critical mass of software (incl games) for other-than-Windows platforms, most people will only use Windows. Its a self-serving cycle.

    And this situation is one that MS does *everything* it possibly can to maintain (legal or otherwise) They will lie about security, about reliability, about compatibility. They will threaten to lock PC vendors out that offer a competing platform on their hardware. They will change their protocols and file formats with every product revision, to ensure competing software cannot hope interoperate, and that current users have no way to migrate They will use software patents where they can, to make anything that does manage to do so, illegal. They will collude with the RIAA, MPAA, and chipset and BIOS makers to make palladium-like systems where "non-approved" software will first not have access to some online services, and then eventually won't be allowed to run at all. The hardware vendors go along because they are, individually, powerless against the combined forces of the MS monopoly and the RIAA/MPAA lawsuit machines.

    They will even use marketing to make it look like people 'choose' Windows - the fallacy here is that the vast majority of people aren't' really aware there is a choice, something else that MS does everything in its power to maintain.

    The situation is so far gone that there is little hope that normal market forces will correct it. The only solution is an extreme - I for one refuse to use *anything* from Microsoft for any reason. I support legislation that requires government software to use free and open formats, or even better to use Free Software - that doesn't lock out MS, they are welcome to provide software that complies.

  38. Art of War? by foley500 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    "All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near...." - Sun Tzu

    Isn't it possible that Google is simply refocusing the battlefield to the OS market as a tactic to keep MS scrambling on multiple fronts?

  39. Re:not good? by Chyeld · · Score: 3, Informative

    From what we know today, Google Chrome OS is aimed for a netbook. A netbook isn't something you install heavy apps on. If it's running a heavy app, it's almost always already being hosted on a server and you are just 'remoting' in, i.e. a terminal.

    Therefore, this is, very easily, a good compeditor for the netbook market.

    Just doing a rough count here at my computer at work, assuming my company was down with it, a good 60 to 80% of my job could be done from a netbook (of sufficent screen size) running a generic properly setup and compatible browser appliance.

    There are things that I doubt I could run from it, such as legacy programs built in Windows for accessing out of date systems. But the majority of the none job specific apps (i.e. time clocks, HR management, training, etc.) are all web based. Google Docs is sufficent for the majority of purposes MS Office is put to.

  40. Re:not good? by rtfa-troll · · Score: 2, Interesting

    If you think of each web site you use as an application (and in a real way it is) then think about what proportion of the applications you used in the last year were web sites and what proportion were native binaries. Doesn't it make a bit of sense to optimise for the 90% case (99.9%??). Even if you look at it in terms of time used, you might find that the aged among us still have majority use of native binaries, but most younger people probably spend much more time using web applications. It makes sense to confine Windows applications to a Citrix server where someone else can manage them properly and you have no need to learn the complexity of Windows permissions model etc.

    I think that the value of systems often comes from the challenge they set themselves. In this sense, the web browser has set its self the challenge of allowing anyone at random to provide code and still providing a safe environment (yes; it's failing at present, but it's close and Chrome sounds even closer) which separates one application from the other. It's pretty clear that Windows gave up completely on that challenge and just decided "you have to have a virus scanner and if anything new comes up, you're on your own". In that environment, the web browser is now delivering much of the value in a system and native applications are becoming legacy. They will take years and years to die (lots of people still use VMS, you know) but they become irrelevant to future development.

    Personally I don't like this at all. When you lose control of your computing, you lose control of your privacy. If your files are "in the cloud" then there's little to stop the person controlling the cloud from poking around without your knowledge. Given that MS seems to have given up, I hope that someone from outside can make a third way in this competition.

    --
    =~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
  41. Re:not good? by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF · · Score: 3, Insightful

    And the same huge number of users when asked "what OS do you want on your new PC, Windows or Google Chrome?", will say "Windows" because they don't have a clue what an OS is and "Windows" sounds vaguely familiar.

    Amen. Pre-installed by a vendor and sold as a finished device is the only way OS's gain any real market.

    As far as I can tell, Google Chrome is a glorified web dumb terminal that some people will happen to run Linux apps on.

    On this I disagree. Google is selling a glorified dumb terminal, but they're selling more than that too. They're partnering to sell it tailored to portable hardware and with Web services taking the place of applications and enabled to run as local applications using offline Web technologies.

    Businesses won't flock to it because it will lack Windows application compatibility.

    For the most part I agree, but I don't rule out some businesses deciding to go with an all in one solution including GMail and Google Apps, for those businesses looking to cut costs or who are not already entrenched in Windows.

    Clueful home users won't use it for the same reason ("Hey, why can't I use iTunes on this laptop or pull pictures from my Kodak camera using their Windows application???")

    Now this is a really interesting point because, why can't you run iTunes on it? Apple doesn't support Linux today, but there is basically no market for Linux for home users today and it is only attractive if they want to target niche power user geeks. If Google gets Chrome OS in front of a few million home users, Apple and other vendors likely will respond by making iTunes and similar applications available for the platform, especially considering that doing so is easiest creating a Web application that is cross platform going forward and adds value for mobile devices and other desktops going forward.

    I like open source just as much as the next guy here and I'd love to see a competitor to Windows, but my need to get work done supersedes my desire to make a statement about open software.

    That goes for most Slashdot users, but we're not representative of the mainstream market. My mother bought a cheap Toshiba netbook a few weeks ago. All the apps she uses are Web apps already with the exception of a really old and discontinued word processor. The same is true for many people and for some organizations. These kinds of devices might work well for gradeschool students and a subset of businesses as well.

    With what we currently know, the Google Chrome OS is as much a competitor to Windows as Google Docs and Gmail is to Microsoft Office and Outlook/Exchange.

    This is pretty much true. The thing is, Google Docs and GMail are slowly gaining a little traction against MS. Further, every additional monopoly of MS, which Google can target removes one more stumbling stone to Google's attempts to market other products. Right now to sell a user on Google Docs, Google has to either work around the limitations of IE or convince a user to download an alternative browser and start using it and to download Google Gears and navigate to the Google Docs page. That's three or four levels of actions from the end user after they buy a computer, to market and convince the user to do, just to get their Word processing on front of an end user. The only reason they are getting any use is because they provide it for free and it works in a pseudo crippled way on IE.

    Now imagine a user buying a netbook that ships with Google Docs on the desktop. They don't have to fight IE being there by default and they don't have to fight to get the user to Google Docs. Further, because they control the browser, it can have Google Gears and run in offline made just fine and can be much more functional than IE allows. I think the Google OS is part of the solution to Google's lack of traction in other markets. MS does really well because t

  42. Google Apps by nafhan · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Someone please tell me how free online versions of MS Office in Office 2010 are not a response to Google Apps. It's likely that MS will have to make a similar response to Chrome OS.
    Google makes money off of advertising, and MS makes money from software. If Google can get MS to lower prices or give software away for free (like Google does), it's a win for Google.

  43. Re:not good? by Goody · · Score: 3, Informative

    With what we currently know, the Google Chrome OS is as much a competitor to Windows as Google Docs and Gmail is to Microsoft Office and Outlook/Exchange.

    You seem to be a bit behind the times on this issue.

    I use both Outlook/Exchange and Gmail on a daily basis and I admin an Exchange server (and used to admin Sendmail and Qmail). It's not news to me that you can migrate from Outlook/Exchange to Gmail; I've investigated it. Gmail provides a fresh interface and much faster searching, however the calendar functionality doesn't come close to Outlook. I won't rehash all the cloud computing issues and how a web app is often clumsy when compared to a native application, but the issues are still there.

    Your link doesn't address Google Docs versus M$ Office. I use both as well. Google Docs is sufficient for only the most basic word processing and spreadsheets. If one tries to do multipage spreadsheets with formulas, graphs, lookups, macros (Business 101 stuff), Google Docs spreadsheets are painful to use and just doesn't have much of the functionality needed.

    You might be able to replace my coffee with Folger's crystals, but not the gas in my car. The same goes with open source/web apps/cloud computing apps and my business applications.

    --
    Tired of being "punished" by the Slashdot $rtbl since 2002. I'm now over at http://soylentnews.org/ .
  44. Re:not good? by networkconsultant · · Score: 2, Funny

    PHB - So what's the per seat liscening on google's OS?

    Techie - Um $0 - no really.
    PHB - What about Microsoft? Techie - Um $250 if you include office, then another $35 for excahnge and active directory, plus $1500 for the terminal sessions / citrix / application virtualization.
    PHB - So your telling me we can save all that by switching and forcing our users to use this new thing from google?
    Techie - Yes.
    PHB - So why are we spending this money again? you say they'll complain if change?
    Techie - Yes they will for a while but after they are done bitching and moaning we can take the savings and spend them on people that don't bitch and moan.
    PHB - So you said you wanted to be the new CTO....

  45. Re:No, Google will just Lose by gigabites2 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Google gears..

  46. Re:I hope Microsoft gets stuffed by Google by mlwmohawk · · Score: 2, Interesting

    when compared to the simplicity of developing for Windows.

    "Simplicity" and "developing for Windows" do not belong in the same sentence, unless the sentence works something like "I like simplicity, but developing for Windows sucks."

    Obviously you've never tried to do something non-trivial. APIs that change definition across releases. A compiler and library that does not support standard function names like open/read/write/close. A socket API that's glued on as an afterthought.

    It doesn't support auto arrays:
    int mysize = somenumber*10;
    char buffer[mysze];

    I think they've FINALLY got variadic macros.

    File access time sucks.
    child process spawn is SLOOWW

    The development tools are a joke.