Microsoft, Other Rivals Slam Google Chrome OS

CWmike writes "Microsoft is, predictably, not all that impressed by Google Inc.'s demonstration of its upcoming Chrome OS. 'From what was shared, it appears to be in the early stages of development,' a Microsoft spokeswoman said. 'From our perspective, however, our customers are already voicing their approval of the way Windows 7 just works — across the Web and on the desktop, and on all sizes and types of PCs — purchasing twice as many units of Windows 7 as we've sold of any other operating system over a comparable time.' But neither were potential rivals who make Linux and instant-on operating systems. Chrome OS claimed 7-second boot times and the ability to run Web apps within another 3 seconds, which failed to impress Woody Hobbs, president and CEO of Phoenix Technologies, a long-time BIOS software maker that has re-invented itself with a Linux-based instant-on OS called HyperSpace. 'Instant-on is about being able to access your Internet applications in one second. Seven seconds is too long,' Hobbs said. 'There is no such thing as "cold boot" for today's mobile PCs such as netbooks and smartbooks. You should be able to use your netbook like you use your smartphone — a press of a button and you are "on."' Mark Lee, CEO of DeviceVM Inc., said Google's favoritism towards its own browser and Web apps could rub some users the wrong way, especially those outside of the US. 'In China, users prefer Baidu, not Google,' Lee said. DeviceVM's Splashtop platform boots into Firefox within seconds and uses Yahoo or Baidu as default search engines instead of Google."

Comments

Dang!

[symbolset]

I was already contrarian in yesterday's Chrome thread. Some people are asking "Does Chrome OS Spell the End of Desktop PCs?" I think the thing that's in the most danger of being taken over by Chrome OS is slashdot. Some people will make some interesting builds, and it will be a lot of fun to play with. It's doubtful much more will come of it than that.

But of course Microsoft and their friends at Forrester and Gartner, PC World and news.com.com.com will be declaring it a greater threat to world peace than Scientology, claim it causes genital warts, say that it may damage both your computer and your self esteem. The funniest thing I've seen along this line is this one.

Re:Dang!

[hitmark]

there are a lot of corporate workers out there that do their daily thing via citrix or similar remote desktop access...

Re:Dang!

[miffo.swe]

That would actually not be hard at all for anyone. Since Chrome OS is open source you can do it today thanks to gpxe. The only problem would be getting the right answer out of your local dhcp like this:

chain http://chrome.google.com/chromeos.gpxe

That could be solved by booting with an usb stick instead. The drawback would be how you verify its really Google youre downloading the system image from and not some random dns injecting hacker. I just got to try this, thanks for the idea!

Re:Dang!

[jo42]

Atom based netbooks are already too slow for anything *but* web surfing

Horse cow pie poopies!!! A Dell Mini 10v with 2GB RAM and 320GB 7200RPM HD running Photoshop CS4 under Mac OS X 10.6.2 is a little bit more than "anything *but* web surfing". Lest you still wet behind the ears 20-somethings have forgotten that today's Netbook is just as powerful as a several year old desktop (or laptop!) that was used to run things like Photoshop, Autocad, Quark, Office, Eclipse and many other real world productivity applications.

Re:Dang!

[Blakey Rat]

Atom based netbooks are already too slow for anything *but* web surfing

Ever actually use one?

My Windows 7 netbook has no problem playing full-screen MP4 video, that's a bit more hardcore than web surfing. Of course, you can find websites now that do full-screen HD video, so I guess maybe that falls under the definition of "web surfing."

Frankly, the Atom CPU is about 5 times faster than my first Windows XP PC. And I did a hell of a lot with that.

At least SplashTop is reasonable

[MBCook]

They are competing directly, but Google's friendlier. Google is making an appliance OS, where as SplashTop is designed as a light fast-booting OS.

But almost everyone is using a strawman (as Microsoft is). The point is not to replace Windows, it's an OS for web surfing. It's not for playing World of Warcraft, doing heavy photo editing, video editing, etc. Everyone is writing the "Google vs. Microsoft" article they want to write, instead of the tougher article about how Google is basically working to define a new class of computer (something of a netbook that's not running a general OS).

It's web-TV, but not on TV and not horrible. It's an email appliance OS that lets you read the web pages people link to in their emails.

It's not a direct shot at MS and Apple.

Gruber gets another one right.

Re:At least SplashTop is reasonable

[RAMMS EIN]

``It's an email appliance OS that lets you read the web pages people link to in their emails.''

In other words, it's exactly what mom and pop need. Especially if someone can make it work without needing a security expert to keep it working.

Re:At least SplashTop is reasonable

[quickOnTheUptake]

I think this take on it is too short-sighted. MS's business model is based on native applications. They want people mainly using outlook to read their mail. They want people editing documents in Word.
Google's business strategy is to get people spending as much time in a browser as possible. They want to replace all those native apps with Web apps that run on any machine with a browser and network connection.
These are two very different models. MS makes loads of money on Office. And it makes considerable money on Windows (which you need to run lots of your non-MS native software). If people start replacing Office with GDocs, MS loses a lot of money. If people stop relying on Windows-only apps to the point that they will seriously consider a well done, manufacturer customized , free OS, MS losses even more.
Chrome OS is one more little step towards Google's goal. If you are using GDocs and Gmail on Chrome, odds are not slim you are going to just stop using Office and Outlook altogether, even on your main desktop. After all, your stuff if already in Google docs.
But the big picture is 10 years down the road. If MS lets this sort of computer experience catch on, if it gives Google a chance to develop compelling replacements for standard apps, ones that run just as well on a free OS on cheap ARM hardware, in 10 years they may need a very different buisness model than the one that has treated them so well for the last 20.

Re:At least SplashTop is reasonable

[notaprguy]

Not really. My mom and pop - aged 79 and 76 - use Microsoft Word and Excel, Quicken, Turbo Tax and Photoshop Elements and several other PC applications. Yes, there are Web-based versions of most of those products but they don't work as well and only work when online (still). A relatively small number of wealthier people will buy Chrome OS devices as a 2nd, 3rd or 4th machine but they'll continue to use PC's and Macs for everything else.

"instant on"

[93 Escort Wagon]

You know, my first thought when I read "seven seconds is too long" was "you've got to be kidding" - but then I remembered how some of the people we support (academic faculty) have wasted hours of our time with complaints when their IMAP email messages were taking four seconds to open on one particular day instead of the usual one second... (and yes, that was a verbatim complaint).

Re:"instant on"

[strikethree]

You know, my first thought when I read "seven seconds is too long" was "you've got to be kidding"

Well, I would say that they are NOT kidding. To be honest, I am getting quite weary of buying upgraded processors and more RAM so I can finally, at last, get instant response... and what happens? Some jackass comes along and says, "programmer time is more important than CPU time. Let's use layers and layers of crap to reduce programmer time. Nobody will ever notice since CPUs will always become faster to hide the slowness."

Well, you know what? Screw you. I am wasting some mod points to respond to this, but yeah. Your mail server should have responded within a second. In a LAN, if a packet takes more than 10 milliseconds to get there, your network is poor. Your CPU should have been able to handle the network packets, decoded the IMAP request, etc within 40 milliseconds. Seriously, a millisecond is a HUGE amount of time for a modern CPU. So, we have 60 milliseconds total in which your mail server should have responded. Why didn't it?

strike

Re:The numbers might not add up

[future assassin]

purchasing twice as many units of Windows 7 as we've sold of any other operating system over a comparable time.

So right here MS themselves admits that VISTA was such crap that people were flocking away from it at record times.

Just works?

[whoever57]

Windows 7 just works -- across the Web and on the desktop, and on all sizes and types of PCs

And it "just works" on ARM processors? So "PC" should really be "x86-based PC".

Re:Just works?

[int69h]

PC has been accepted as meaning "an x86 personal computer generally running dos or one of its successors" for roughly 30 years now. Bitch all you want, but you're not going to change things.

It's not a problem

[Weaselmancer]

'From what was shared, it appears to be in the early stages of development,' a Microsoft spokeswoman said.

Thanks for the advice but it's not a problem - I never buy any software from Google until the third release.

Car Analogy for MS Spokesperson

[Ian Alexander]

The reason your customers won't be interested in Chrome OS as a replacement for 7 is the same reason pickup-truck drivers aren't interested in motorcycles as replacements.

It's scratching a different itch, although I'm a little skeptical that anyone's seriously itching hard for a minimal OS capable of running only a web browser.

Re:Car Analogy for MS Spokesperson

[quarterbuck]

Actually I have found google's products amazingly useful
At a place where I used to consult, they use a Bloomberg machine to get financial data. Then they export it out to excel and then from there to either 3rd party toolkits or write macros in excel to analyze it. It was often a problem that data was not always up-to-date or that two versions were over written. (It's a finance firm, and they like excel to look at data. Obviously, no source control either)

Turns out Google can do the whole thing for you.Google Finance has the data, which you can pull into google docs using functions and then you can write functions to generate results. It does not have macros, but you can get pretty close using standard functions. Best part is that the data is always automatically updated since the whole thing is "on the cloud". The cost savings on Bloomberg ($20 K per year), Excel (~$100 /year), computer +Electricity (~600 /year), a human being to keep data updated/versioned ($10 K /year for the task) - is enormous.

High praise!

[MrMista_B]

If they're all so scared enough to give it this much attention, it /must/ be good.

Re:In all the time people have used Windows...

[blackraven14250]

Ah, but you can dump your Excel for something cloud-based that will likely look nearly exactly like Excel, function nearly the same way, and read Excel files. Add that to the boot and app launch times, and you have a serious competitor for the specific segment of hardware that Google is aiming for.

smartphone — a press of a button and you are

[jamesh]

smartphone — a press of a button and you are "on."'

I don't know what smartphones they are referring to. My iPhone and my laptop are seldom 'off'. They both go into standby when i'm not using them, the times to come out of standby are very similar, and if I actually had to type a password into my iPhone to bring it out of standby the computer would beat it by far.

Has Mr Hobbs never turned a smartphone on from a complete off state? There is a negligible difference between booting my iPhone vs my Windows XP laptop. My old HP iPaq wasn't much different.

Even if they were impressed, stunned even...

[w0mprat]

... it's part of their paycheck to not be impressed with anything let alone admit it to the media.

Do they use a press release response form ticking the checkboxes for all the usual lines?

Oh come on, Chrome is no threat to desktops, because people will still need their rich apps on high-spec hardware, therefore desktops will be still around as a do-everything machine. Partly though, because laptops netbooks and smartphones haven't killed desktops yet. I fear though, Microsoft has for a long time been making Windows a one size fits all requirements OS, the indentical OS gets put on netbooks to top end workstations. Chrome OS will appeal people who just want web and social networking and a bit of mucking around with their digital photos, but previously had to fork out for more than they needed in a laptop and desktop.

Having played around with the virtual machine images circulating, I don't think it's a threat to anything, but it looks pretty solid for a beta OS, but finally the ideal OS for the focused web tablet we've all been wanting for a long time. I also imagine the code could be rolled into existing linux distributions. It could coexist alongside other desktop environments ie KDE/Gnome, although I don't think Chrubuntu would be a very catch name.

Oh and it's Linux, open source, if it is lacking any features we will fix it okay?

...For now.

[KingSkippus]

Anyone who thinks that once Google perfects this, they're going to be content to simply sit idle on the cloudbook (I'm making that word up; consider it public domain) market with it is fooling themselves.

Google is also working on implementing 3D in the browser. They're also saying that for most features users use, Google Apps will be caught up with Microsoft Office in a year. They're also working VERY hard on developing a standard codebase to implement a desktop UI within a browser, and they're making very good progress.

Is Google overly optimistic? Maybe, but what company isn't? My point, though, is that they've got a LOT of really good things going for them. Don't dare think of Chrome as forever relegated to "OS-lite," or else you'll be making the same fundamental mistake that many other companies have made with Google. (And indeed, that a lot of them made with Microsoft in the past. "Oh, Internet Explorer will never catch up to Netscape." "Excel is like a scaled-down Lotus 123." "Our company has invested way too much in Netware to change." "Visual C++ is neat, but for serious development, go with Borland.")

It's really kind of fun to watch a company out-Microsoft Microsoft, except in a good way. As far as I'm concerned, I hope Microsoft continues to think of ChromeOS as just a toy that will never be a serious contender with Windows outside of very limited niche devices.

Re:...For now.

[Dysphoric1]

watch a company out-Microsoft Microsoft

Which is why I don't use Google or any of their products and hopefully never will. Google is setting itself up to be as big or an even bigger threat than Microsoft has been to our freedom.

They are trying to monopolize internet communication itself. They are trying to control both the content and the interface by which you access it. They have their hands in e-books, internet videos, cellphones, operating systems, search, advertising, e-mail, applications, browsers, computer hardware and much more. They may not succeed, but there is no doubt they are trying.

They may be beneficent now, but most corporations have an authoritarian hierarchy and all it will take is a change of leadership for things to change and I, for one, don't want anyone having that much power in their eventually corrupted hands.

It may seem wise to some that the enemy (Google) of their enemy (Microsoft) is their friend, but history has shown that most revolutions wind up just instituting a different authoritarian regime of their own, despite their best intentions. I hope I'm wrong, but I would very wary of what Google has the potential to become in the future.

Re:...For now.

[DJRumpy]

Not so. Ballmer still refers to Apple as a rounding error. They already have significants digit(s) to the left of the decimal. MS has blinders on lately, and the dogs are past nipping on their heels. They are biting their ankles. Get enough dogs, and they can bring down any big animal.

Not a good year for Microsoft.

Attack boot time?

[RiotingPacifist]

IMO the key selling points for chrome are:

1) Zero user maintenance

2) Security (the thing is even resistant against user-space malware), even Linux distros are years away from sand-boxing desktop apps

3) Simple UI

Google has lots of time to get it right

[rmcd]

What people don't get about Google's software is that they are not selling it. That's not where their revenue comes from. They can spend a lot of time getting the software right, refocusing it, tweaking it, getting comments. Microsoft by contrast has to come out with the big "impressive" release every few years to keep the company afloat. That's their business model. It's not Google's.

Look at Android. 18 months ago the cell phone execs were all saying that Google didn't understand how hard it is to create cellular phone software. The G1 got a lot of yawns. That reception would have been a disaster for Apple, but for Google it didn't matter, they just kept working on it. Today, Android is a serious competitor.

Whatever Chrome does or doesn't do can be changed. And maybe it will flop. That won't be a huge deal for Google as long as they get their advertising on the next generation of devices.

Play ChromeOS (Data) Jeopardy!

[tomhudson]

Ah, but you can dump your Excel for something cloud-based that will likely look nearly exactly like Excel, function nearly the same way, and read Excel files. Add that to the boot and app launch times, and you have a serious competitor for the specific segment of hardware that Google is aiming for.

Me: I'll take ChromeOS for $100, Alex.
Alex: For $100, "specific segment of hardware that Google is aiming for".
Me: Who are people too cheap to spend $200 on a netbook?.
Alex: Right!
Me: I'll take ChromeOS for $200, please.
Alex: The answer is "it obsoleted ChromeOS a year before ChromeOS was supposed to be delivered"
Me: What is Droid?
Alex: Right again!
Me: I'll take ChromeOS for $400, please.
Alex: The answer is "Business".
Me: Who won't be using ChromeOS?
Alex: Right again!
Me: ChromeOS for $800, please.
Alex: They both don't let you run your apps your way.
Me: How is a ChromeOS-based computer like a Tivo?
Alex: Right again!
Me: ChromeOS for $1600, please.
Alex: The answer is, "100 times as much."
Me: How much more profit will Apple make off each computer it sells compared to vendors of ChromeOS-based computers.
Alex: Right again!
ChromeOS bonus question, "We welcome our cloud-based data overlords", "In Soviet Russia, Chrome browses YOU" and "You can have my data when you pry it from my cold dead hands."
Me: What were the three most popular ChromeOS privacy FAIL slogans?
Alex: Right! How much did you wager?
Me: All of it, Alex. There was no risk - everyone knows ChromeOS is Google's most famous flop to date.

Re:Play ChromeOS (Data) Jeopardy!

[brogdon]

I'm surprised this got modded up so much.

Alex: For $100, "specific segment of hardware that Google is aiming for".
Me: Who are people too cheap to spend $200 on a netbook?.

Hey parents of new college freshmen, here's a $200 laptop that'll take notes in class, play movies and TV, do email, surf the web, and run both google's online office suite and Microsoft's so your kid can do homework. Oh, and it'll have a hundredth of the virus issues you other kid's HP laptop did. You're welcome.

Alex: The answer is "it obsoleted ChromeOS a year before ChromeOS was supposed to be delivered"
Me: What is Droid?

You think ChromeOS is a bad idea, but porting a cell phone OS back to PC is an obvious success? Really?

Alex: The answer is "Business".
Me: Who won't be using ChromeOS?

Hey businesses who moved all their internal apps to ASP.net years ago, here's a $200 client for all of those. You'll never have to roll out software to it. Enjoy.

Alex: They both don't let you run your apps your way.
Me: How is a ChromeOS-based computer like a Tivo?

Open source operating system. What can't you do your way?

Alex: The answer is, "100 times as much."
Me: How much more profit will Apple make off each computer it sells compared to vendors of ChromeOS-based computers.

Why can't people make money off of these machines? Hardware suddenly becomes unprofitable when you install ChromeOS on it?

ChromeOS bonus question, "We welcome our cloud-based data overlords", "In Soviet Russia, Chrome browses YOU" and "You can have my data when you pry it from my cold dead hands."
Me: What were the three most popular ChromeOS privacy FAIL slogans?

Again, it's an open source OS. If you don't like Google's shit, point it somewhere else. What's the problem?

ChromeOS == crippleware.

[tomhudson]

The point is not to replace Windows, it's an OS for web surfing.

Not really. People will buy a crippleware smartphone for that before they'll spend money on a crippleware computer. don't have to buy a separate keyboard, mouse or screen, portable, always-on, can run local apps instead of downloading everything off the web every time, apps work offline, more local storage, can make phone calls, videos, etc., and just way more cool.

And the only people who will look at this are people too cheap to buy even a crappy $200 netbook or a smartphone. No advertiser is going to pay for clicks from them, so forget about subsidizing these boxes with revenue from search.

Business won't want it because there's some data you just don't share, not to mention desktop clutter and more time wasted synching.

This product is at least 3 years too late (and will be 4 years too late when it finally rolls out), and aims at a market nobody can make money with.

Re:ChromeOS == crippleware.

[MBCook]

I can see a large market for this. It would be perfect for my Grandfather. He doesn't need photo editing or video capture. If he can turn the font size up, it would work great.

Best of all, no maintenance, nothing to install, nothing to configure and fiddle with, just an appliance. People already try to use computers like that, why shouldn't Google make that possible?

The netbook market is two markets squished into one. One is the cheap low power computer market (these things), and the other is the tiny market (something else). Windows is very heavy for just a little thing to surf. If you want a real laptop a tiny higher end netbook ($400-$500) is going to have the horsepower to be able to actually work well.

Re:ChromeOS == crippleware.

[icebraining]

don't have to buy a separate keyboard, mouse or screen, portable

ChromeOS is obviously intended for netbooks, which already have that.

always-on

One of the main features of ARM CPUs is the low energy usage. Combined with auto-suspend when not in use, and it can get full days of autonomy.

can run local apps instead of downloading everything off the web every time, apps work offline

http://gears.google.com/

more local storage

Current SSD based netbooks don't have much storage space, and yet have been selling nicely.

can make phone calls, videos

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Voice

Microsoft fail; Google holding back details?

[hattig]

Microsoft aren't considering:

1) ARM version of Chrome OS - means $199 smartbooks instead of $299-$499 netbooks running Windows XP or Windows 7.

2) OS is free.

3) Actually Google might be offering a share of advertising revenue to manufacturers, as with Android. This means that the OS has a negative cost. We could see $149 smartbooks. Who is interested in a Windows 7 netbook at 3x the cost then?

4) Good enough for a second/cloud computer. Especially if it supports the "home cloud" with support for DNLA (media streaming) and other common home/office services.

However there are failings - firstly I think that Google need to make the OS Android compatible. I.e., installing the Dalvik VM and Android APIs by default. Android 2 allows higher resolutions. Android 3 will surely support resolutions up to smartbook (1024x600, 1366x768) and running an app as a tab within Chrome OS, allowing a unified platform. Surely therefore Chrome OS smartbooks will include multitouch displays...

Also Chrome OS 1 will surely be rough, like Android 1 and the G1. Droid is showing what Android 2 can do, and it's far more mature. Android 3 will probably be the first all-rounded and sweetly remembered variant. Android 4 will be good too. Android 5 through 7 will be dire.

It's definitely a fast boot,

[TxRv]

even in Virtualbox. The rest is rather disappointing though. It's just a full screen web-browser and nothing else. If you want more than that you'd be better off with Ubuntu Netbook Remix or another mini Linux distro. I would have much preferred a stable Linux build of the Google Chrome browser.