
The Folly of Google's Latest Gambit - fiaz
http://online.barrons.com/article/SB124726722483025477.html
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brk
This is a poorly written article, IMO.

The author chides Googles for having two OS's with overlapping marketshare,
yet seems to forget about WinCE, XP, XP Embedded, Vista. There is certainly
more than a bit of overlap there.

And of course, like every other upcoming version of Windows for the last 15+
years, this next version (Windows 7) is going to be the end-all OS, with all
the bugs and issues and whatnot worked out. We heard that about Windows 95,
and 98 and 2000 and XP and Vista, yet it never really seems to hold true.

I personally think Google has a really solid shot at this. Microsoft just
doesn't get it, their overhead is too large to allow them to charge a fair
price for the product and still turn a profit. Apple is their own island and
(IMO) doesn't really want or need to be a threat to the computing world at
large, they target a successful and profitable niche. Linux is just too
disjointed to ever become mainstream, that ship has sailed. But Google, they
have the R&D power, the marketing savvy and the ability to create a universal
OS that could directly challenge the Windows franchise, and I think the world
is ready for it.

Google has developed so much of their own technology already, that an OS is
probably not a major departure for them.

~~~
trezor
_But Google, they have the R &D power, the marketing savvy and the ability to
create a universal OS that could directly challenge the Windows franchise, and
I think the world is ready for it._

I don't know about you, but I want my OS to do more than just launch a browser
and that's it.

People ridicules Windows 7 starter edition for only being limited to launch
four programs only, but when google makes that number _one_ , everyone is
applauding?

I don't get it.

~~~
drhowarddrfine
Why would anyone think that a "universal OS" would only launch a browser? I
think ChromeOS may contain Google's Native Client allowing web apps to run
native code on the local machine. If so, Microsoft and Windows is doomed.

~~~
trezor
My impression was that Chrome OS was supposed to be a netbook OS, focused
mainly on getting online and a browser up and running, and little more. That
is as far as you can get from a universal OS.

Anyway, since we really have next to no detail, I guess this is all wild
speculation, so discussion has somewhat limited interest until we get
something solid.

As for Windows beeing doomed... I kinda doubt thousands of companies worldwide
is going to ditch their current platform, all their current software and jump
on something entirely new and unproven.

If Linux failed as a desktop OS against Windows (with massive centralized
administration features) in the corporate world, how will a Linux distro with
even more trimmed down feature set going to be appealing?

