Clash of the titans
2009-07-10 10:43
If business is war then two of the world's biggest companies have finally stopped skirmishing on their borders and brought out the heavy artillery. On the 7th of July Google fired the first shell by announcing that they will begin offering their own operating system in mid 2010.
The warhead - called Chrome OS - is aimed straight at the heart of Microsoft who have built their entire business around operating systems since the 1970s, first with MS DOS and then the globally dominating Windows series.
But while Microsoft have always charged for their software, Google plan to give theirs away for free. What's more Google are starting from a completely fresh perspective - one with the potential to undermine Microsoft’s entire business model.
If the name "Chrome" sounds familiar that’s because it’s also the name of Google's web browser (the program you're using to view the internet right now is a browser).
And this isn't just a case of lazy naming. By evolving Chrome into an operating system Google are planning to turn the entire software world on its head and make browsing the centre of computing.
Hang on, isn't an operating system a lot more complicated that a browser? Doesn't a browser need an operating system to, well, operate?
Dumber and cheaper
That's the whole genius of the plan. Google are betting that the centre of influence in computing is moving out of personal computers and into the massive computing power of the internet, known as the "cloud".
That means in future that computers will be dumber and cheaper. They will rely on the enormous banks of computers that power the internet to do much of their thinking for them.
This is already happening. One of the fastest growing sectors in computing is "netbooks" - smaller, cheaper, less powerful portable computers with speedy connections to the internet that focus on tasks like email and browsing the net.
Currently Microsoft is tussling with free operating systems like Linux for ownership of this market, and Google wants its own share of the pie.
So what? There’s nothing particularly revolutionary about a free operating system. They have been around for longer than Microsoft have been in existence, let alone Google. And some of them are backed by huge companies like IBM and SAP.
Yet none of those other companies is as heavily invested in cloud computing as Google. And it's cloud computing that poses the greatest risk to Microsoft’s dominance.
Microsoft's bread and butter has always been its desktop applications - programs like Word, Outlook and PowerPoint. Operating systems are like plumbing - expensive but necessary - and Microsoft have lost money on them for years. This was justified because they knew that by owning the "platform" they would be able earn it all back on desktop apps.
A big 'if'
Google Docs, on the other hand, is nearly as good as Microsoft's Office but is free and requires no hard drive space and much less power (and therefore can run on a cheaper computer). It's a true "cloud" application - its "platform" is the internet.
So Google have, in effect, pulled Microsoft's own trick on them but in reverse, and for free. And given how quickly Microsoft are losing market share in the browser market (it’s now just above 50%), they have real cause for concern. If Chrome OS takes off, Google will start to hurt more than Microsoft's pride.
That's still a big "if" though. For all their mistakes Microsoft are still the top dog of software. Despite the current media hyperbole about Chrome OS, Windows still commands 90% of the market share in operating systems. Even if Chrome lives up to the hype it will still take years to get a foothold.
Only one thing is certain about this battle - peace talks are unlikely to begin anytime soon. We're in for a long slog and I don’t think anyone can accurately predict a winner. What we can be sure of is that the conflict will change software (and the internet) forever.
- Alistair is Social Media Manager at 20FourLabs.
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