Posted on 07/11/2009 9:10:46 AM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
Google's industry ally, Apple, has managed to steal a few percentage points of market share away from Microsoft in the past twelve years under the singular leadership of CEO Steve Jobs. But Windows remains the dominant operating system, more dominant even than Google is in search.
And with the forthcoming release of Windows 7, Microsoft appears to be well-prepared to defend its empire.
It's hard to imagine a less promising business for Google to enter, especially given that Google plans to give Chrome OS away for free. And Google's grand plan to shake up the operating system market isn't made more credible by the absence of any actual programming code or substantive information about Chrome OS.
Yet, the fact that Google has partners that share its vision says something about the shakiness of Microsoft's position. Acer, Adobe, ASUS, Freescale, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, and Toshiba are all working with Google to help it re-imagine the operating system. So too is Intel, as The Register reports.
Google's decision to target the netbook market may help the prospects of Chrome OS. Although Microsoft has made a concerted effort to push Windows on netbooks to fend off low-cost Linux-based challengers, Google may find it easier to compete in the netbook market because access to cloud-based services and software is more valuable on devices .......
(Excerpt) Read more at informationweek.com ...
fyi
The partners all want a light, free OS that is user friendly and fully loaded(the OS not the machine) for the masses so they can build in more profit for the netbooks which don’t earn them much profit at all. Spending 18 dollars on an OS is not helping them(XP cost, which I think MS should simply give 7 starter away if this is the case).
IMO I think you will see less powerful netbooks in the future if ChromeOS takes off with smaller storage space, maybe less ports, less ram etc.
So (in plain English) this would essentially mean that there would be a Google 'browser' which would act like an O/S to enable you to run apps off the web, right? Similar to running a mail app through Yahoo. Is that correct?
Remember, ATT had 100% of the market prior to divestiture. They lost 30% of the market OVERNIGHT.
There are so many people that HATE microsoft they will switch literally overnight. Especially if they can get a decent OS that is free.
Google has the money and the market they can work with.
If they can get 5% of the market, that would be HUGE—especially in the netbook market that is only going to be bigger. I bought my last notebook two years ago, and it is used mostly for web use and file transfer when I am on the road. This could easily be handled by a netbook.
Toss in the ability to watch an mp4 movie on it, and I would be all set.
Just my two cent, average joe Macbook user, opinion.
So after 20 years of computing, I am still frustrated by apps that don’t work or hardware that don’t work and all the flaky little dumb*ss problems. IMHO, operating systems should be seen and not heard. They should be something that the user doesn’t have to think about. They should just work.
Now, I am using a <2 year old laptop with 1 gig of ram, and Vista. Know what, I can’t get internet explorer to work. I have been using firefox, but when a friend needed to use my computer to access her homework, she could not log in with firefox. Then she couldn’t get IE to work. We ended up doing her homework on her cell phone. I have re-downloaded IE, but it still doesn’t work. This is the kind of stuff that just drives me nuts.
parsy, who is nuts.
I tried it and I think it stinks! I went back to IE.
But I heard Schmidt interviewed on CNBC from the Sun Valley conference this last week and I think where Google is going is wanting to be connected to the wave of very mobile customers with their mini devices that have access to the web.
Chrome is simply a way to supply that at very low cost.
So their business plan is to make money off of the advertising....not hardware or operating systems....that will give $MSF some real competition....
Google is BIG BROTHER. It will be an extension of the MSM.
My opinion....they really don’t care what is running in the user device...they just want it to connect to their internet services,,,
You need to double your RAM with Vista - that’s it’s major downside. I am happy with my Toshiba laptop that runs Vista (almost 3 years) but I had to pay for more computing power.
I remember it was the gov’t that forced that, not some competitor. Now look at AT&T they are back up to around 70% of the market and the gov’t is looking at anti-trust issues with them again.
Mines a Toshiba too. It came with 524(?) ram, and I doubled. Now I notice most is 2 to 4 gig of ram. Simply unbelievable when my first computers were Radio Shack and my first “real” computer was a Tandy 1000TX.
But I am a dinosaur. I still have to go to command prompt to “mkdir”
parsy, who is going the way of T-Rex
Thanks. The advertising angle certainly answers the revenue question.
Isn’t this new OS Chrome just Ubuntu in a skirt with fuzzy slippers ?
No it isn’t. Most pc’s come with 2 gigs or more of ram and if they don’t you can easily pick up 2 gigs for around 20 dollars or so. Not exactly a deal breaker. The problem with Vista has been it’s dependency on a gpu that is DirectX 9 compatible.
Mac user comments are invalid on FR !
It’s a rule ......:o)
Stay Safe !!
they are building on top of the Linux kernel....and right now using Ubuntu...and using Javascript...with some new wrinkles,....
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