Google's New Platform Chrome Aims To Show Microsoft's Windows 
the Door
  * Microsoft's monopoly threatened by web rival
* Apple may hold key to fortunes of Chrome
  Charles Arthur
guardianddcodduk,
Wednesday 8 July 2009 21.40 BST
httpccwwwddguardianddcodduk/technologystblebjjistjulstblejh/googl
e-chrome-microsoft-windows-os
  It's going to be a Fight Night for heavyweights Google
and Microsoft
  It is the technology industry's equivalent of the
irresistible force meeting the immovable object.
Google, the web upstart founded 11 years ago, has
announced it will go head-to-head with Microsoft with
an operating system (OS) -- the programs that make a
computer work -- for machines ranging from handhelds up
to desktop computers.
  If Google can get enough people to buy computers
running its new Chrome OS, it will cut into Microsoft's
two biggest cash cows: Windows and its Office suite of
programs, including Word, Excel and PowerPoint.
Microsoft, which once spoke of "cutting off the air
supply" of a web-based rival, Netscape, has woken up to
find a new threat reaching for its throat.
  The confrontation has been expected for years -- despite
Google's insistence it had no such ambitions -- but it
still caught observers by surprise when a Google
spokeswoman confirmed to IT news service IDG that it
plans to announce this week the names of computer
makers in Taiwan and China signed up to work with
Chrome OS, and said that it will show off Chrome's user
interface later this year.
  The challenge to Microsoft is implicit, yet also
direct.  In a blog post, Sundar Pichai, Google's vice-
president of product management, and Linus Upson,
engineering director, explained that "the operating
systems that browsers [used to access pages on the web]
run on were designed in an era when there was no web".
That is a swipe at Windows, which dates back to the
1990's.  Pichai and Upson also promise that with Chrome
OS, "we are going back to the basics and completely
redesigning the underlying security architecture of the
OS" to ensure that "users don't have to deal with
viruses, malware and security updates" -- another swipe.
  An operating system is the set of programs that makes a
computer act as it does: the same computer can run
Windows, Apple's Mac OS X or the free Linux operating
system.  Each computer will then behave differently, and
do different things; but connecting to the internet is
key for all.  So even if Google's dramatic attack fails,
it still wins.
  The reason is its dominant position as a search engine
- a key activity -- and in selling adverts against
search ("AdWords") and web pages ("AdSense"), which is
how it makes money.  As Nick Carr, an author and
journalist who has studied Google for books such as The
Big Switch, observes: "For Google, literally everything
that happens on the internet complements its main
business.  The more things people and companies do
online, the more ads they see and the more money Google
makesddIn addition, as internet activity increases,
Google collects more data on consumers' needs and
behaviour and can tailor its ads more precisely,
strengthening its competitive advantage and further
increasing its income."
  Chrome OS will be based around the Linux operating
system, and will initially be offered on "netbooks" -
the small, cheap laptops that have seen explosive
growth in the past two years due to their size, weight
and price.  Data from IDC suggests that while the PC
market as a whole shrank by 6.8% in the first quarter
of 2009, netbook shipments kept growing (from a low
base) to 9.5% of all computer shipments.  If any
significant share of the market moves to Chrome OS,
Microsoft will lose the Windows revenue and revenue
from its Office products, which won't run on Linux.
That could slowly bleed the giant to death.
  Not everyone is convinced Google will succeed, however.
Michael Gartenberg, a consumer devices analyst at
Interpret, based in Los Angeles, was unimpressed.
"Folks who have never seen it, used it or spent five
minutes with it are claiming it's huge threat to
WindowsddggIf that's the case, wouldn't it also be a
threat to Apple and Mac OS, an argument I've not seen
this morning?)" He added that history doesn't run in
favour of Chrome OS's principles: "Consumers have
overwhelmingly rejected Linux-flavoured netbooks for
Windows-capable machines that they could actually
accomplish things on, such as run PC applications."
  He thinks that the aim is to distract from Microsoft's
next version of Windowsearelease of latest version of
Windows 7, which will be released, due this October:
"By creating of lot of fear, uncertainty and doubt this
morning (after all, every PC runs web-apps really well
and no one is looking for devices that web based only
for the most pat).  they hope to take the attention and
lustre off Windows 7."
  It may in fact be rival Apple that determines whether
Chrome OS succeeds.  Its iTunes music playing,
organisation and purchasing program is installed on
>do 100m computers, more than half of which are
Windows machines.  If Google can persuade Apple to
provide a version that runs on Linux, people may move
over to Chrome OS.  Otherwise, leaving behind their
music collections comthe dearest digital property many of
them own, might be too much.  Still, Google has a good
chance of getting a hearing: Eric Schmidt, its chief
executive, has been on Apple's board since 2006.
Perhaps Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's chief executive,
should start worrying now.


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