Chrome OS, the Wall of Windows Apps, and Google's Stance Toward Microsoft
by Sam Dean - Jul. 10, 2009Comments (3)- Related Blog Posts
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In response to my post "Does Chrome OS Have a Fighting Chance?," where I discussed various things that will and won't work in Google's favor as it delivers an open source operating system targeted at netbooks, a reader, in the comments, served up this pithy but thought-provoking conclusion: "It stands little chance unless Google finds a way to natively run familiar Windows apps."
In my post, I pointed out that users won't just adopt cloud-based applications in droves, abandoning desktop applications, and I said, "application usage doesn't shift entirely overnight." Still, the reader comment focuses specifically on Windows applications, and is one of many thoughts appearing online concerning Google's precise stance toward Microsoft. What is that exact stance?
Many of Google's moves are interpreted as direct shots at Microsoft's hegemony--attempts to overthrow dominant positions that Microsoft has. They said it about Google's browser, they said it about Google's online hosted applications, and now they are saying it about Google's upcoming OS. Maybe Google's size and financial success help drive this line of thinking, but has it really played out that Google has toppled Microsoft's most dominant money making positions?
Microsoft's productivity applications are on close to 90 percent of desktops, its operating system is too, and though its browser is losing market share, Mozilla's browser is responsible for most of the erosion, not Google's. Also, as Jeff Haynie astutely notes, Microsoft may not be all that focused on browser dominance, for antitrust reasons. Google's market capitalization is approaching the size of Microsoft's nearly entirely because of its search dominance and the accompanying revenue stream from advertising. Most of the company's efforts feed that advantage that it has over everyone else, including Microsoft.
It can't be lost on Google that it doesn't tend to topple Microsoft's dominant software category positions. That's why I question the many blog posts and news stories that I'm seeing that suggest that Chrome OS is even an attempt to swing at Microsoft's OS dominance in the first place. Perhaps it's just another foothold for Google, a platform that can steer some--but not all--users toward its applications, and its advertising stream.
In this GigaOm post today, Stacey Higginbotham notes a post from The Inquirer, containing this quote: "Chip Giant Intel has confessed that it's been working with Google on the Chrome OS project, secretly undermining the glorious Wintel alliance that has shaped PC systems for better or worse for nearly two decades." Really? Really? The Inquirer's stance sounds mighty hard to believe, especially since no named source from Intel in the original blog post on the topic backs up the conclusion, Intel is not on the list of hardware partners that Google has announced even though other chip makers are, Intel continues to make buckets of money from its close alliance with Microsoft, and Intel is backing its own Linux-based Moblin operating system for netbooks.
Beyond that, Stacey notes this:
"In other Chrome-related news, Eric Schmidt, Google’s CEO, apparently wasn’t keen on building an OS, according to the Financial Times. But now he gets it. 'We benefit…when [consumers] put more of their life online,” he reportedly told a group of media types at a Sun Valley confab last night. “They do more searches, click on more ads. It’s a very straight-forward strategic initiative."
Now, that does make sense, and sounds measured. Schmidt is creating a relationship between Chrome OS, "searches," and "clicking more ads." For Google to topple Microsoft's operating system dominance, armies of users and businesses tied to applications like Excel and Outlook would have to chuck their investments and efforts and run for the cloud.
This is going to happen overnight? This is going to happen because of a new line of netbooks, which are defined by their limited hardware resources? I don't think so, and I don't think Eric Schmidt thinks so, either. It would be much more logical for him to conclude that Android's foothold on smartphones, a possible foothold on netbooks from Chrome OS, and similar initiatives are simply new ways to find new users to click on ads.
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