Google to launch OS

The Linux kernel is the fastest most unobtrusive kernel there is. What else would you want? The best operating system is the one you don't even notice is there.

edit: Yes my statement makes perfect sense. If you don't think so, you are probably getting the terms OS and GUI confused.

Anyway, sorry to veer of topic yet again. Back to Chrome OS. I think it's great they are releasing it, but they have their work cut out for them if they want anyone to actually use it. But I'm sure they know all of that.

Perhaps Ubuntu and Google can get together eventually and merge their projects, that would be badass. Google's servers already run Ubuntu anyway. I know it's not going to happen, just waxing philosophical here heh

Originally Posted by javyn

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LOL yeah monopolization is a pretty good business model. Let's see how they handle competition now, something they've never had to do before. When Netscape released the source code for its browser it pretty much meant the beginning of the end for their dominance.

I think you use the term "Monopoly" too loosely. Windows has always had direct competition, at least in American markets. The fact that they've leveraged their product into more devices than their competitors does not make them a monopoly. As far back as I can remember, you've always had three or more options when it comes to operating systems.

And your percentages are way too high. It certainly won't take a 20% loss in market share to send their stock prices into a tailspin. Companies live and die by margins.

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MS stock won't take that drastic of a dive unless market share swings radically against them. People are not idiots, they realize that MS is extremely well insulated by the fact that most computers in the world run their products, and likely will for the forseeable future. There may be ups and downs, and bubbles, and depressions in the market, but above all that, MS is still an incredibly profitable company.

I see it as a slow death by a thousand cuts when more and more free alternatives are released tailored to specific uses and users.

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I honestly don't think thats very likely. But I guess we'll see. There are many, many things working against your scenario... familiarity, availability, media, ease of use, and the fact that most people aren't aware or don't care what other options exist when what they have works just fine.

edit: The only way I see Windows 7 boosting their market share is if a ton of people decide to go out and buy new PCs...which in this economy I don't see happening.\\

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I forsee this being the case. especially considering the fact that Win7 is much more low-end hardware friendly than Vista. You are going to see it competing much more directly with things like Ubuntu on budget PC's and Netbooks. I THINK that Windows market share on laptops is going to increase because of this and the fact that mobile computing is increasingly important as a market. MS failed to address this with Vista, but they didn't make that mistake twice.

I guess we'll see how it plays out. Should be interesting...

These new operating systems scare me.

Originally Posted by Tokyo Slim

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I think that unless MS loses another 20% of market share in the next 10 years or so, they are going to keep on pushing out product according to what is likely the most successful business model in the history of free market enterprise.

I don't see MS losing market share. In fact, I'd be shocked if Win 7 didn't boost it slightly.

Well, from Aug 08 to May 09, Windows has lost 3% of the OS total market share. That would make for a 20% loss in 5 years. There is no evidence that this declining trend will necessarily continue, but if it does, you would think people at Microsoft would react to it in some way.

Aug 08:



May 09:

Originally Posted by Mildly Consumptive

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Well, from Aug 08 to May 09, Windows has lost 3% of the OS total market share. That would make for a 20% loss in 5 years. There is no evidence that this declining trend will necessarily continue, but if it does, you would think people at Microsoft would react to it in some way.

Aug 08:

May 09:

Thats what I'm saying. I expect Win 7 to make at least SOME of that ground back up. I DON'T think you will see them adopting Apple or Ubuntu's business models, or changing the Windows brand identity drastically to appease the (still) minority of PC users unless something drastic happens like a mass exodus from the platform. If Vista's bad press only lost them 3% last year, it just goes to show what a strong brand they are.

Also, I don't know that I believe they've lost 20% over the last five years. Hard to read the graph on my phone, but that chart shows more than 70% marketshare doesn't it?

can someone explain to me the idea of having a search/browser based OS?

why?

I don't search that often and I don't need everything tied to a browser

Originally Posted by javyn

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The Linux kernel is the fastest most unobtrusive kernel there is.

Not really. It is slow, bloated, unreliable, and full of cruft.

The best operating system is the one you don't even notice is there.

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Agreed, but Linux is nowhere close to this.

Chrome OS is intriguing from a technical perspective (their claims about fundamentally rethinking OS security), but I don't see the business model at all. Giveaway OS in a low-end, no-margin category (netbooks) that's a tiny fraction of the total PC market and the emerging mobile market makes no sense at all. But then again, barely anything Google's done after AdWords makes any business sense.

--Andre

Originally Posted by Teger

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can someone explain to me the idea of having a search/browser based OS?

why?

I don't search that often and I don't need everything tied to a browser

The idea, I suppose, is that you can run it on really crappy hardware, because google's server farm will handle all the real computation. You can basically run a thin client. The second major benefit is that all your files are available from wherever you are. The problem is, as soon as you want to run ANYTHING that's not handled by google's servers, you're out of luck.

Gaming? Sorry. Video editing? Probably not, or if so, you have to uploade the video first,etc. And forget about using Adobe applications, you'll have to use whatever google provides. then there's all the in-house programming companies all over the world have done in .net, running on internal databases, that they wouldn't be able to use.

Personally, I would never use it, and I don't see it becoming a big thing in the enterprise either, at least not any time soon. How many people just want to use there computers for office apps? My guess is that most families probably want some gaming capabilities for their kids. It's just too much change for most people. And an OS isn't really a standalone product. There is a whole ecosystem built around it, from programming tools, to apps, to games, etc.

People like the PC. PCs are cheap now, even with a Microsoft OS. Aside from the benefit of having files always available (which MS is working to address), I think cloud computing is a step back, not an advance. There's a reason we moved away from mainframes and thin clients in the first place. It's fine for mobile phones, but it's not replacing the PC any time soon.

Originally Posted by A Y

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Not really. It is slow, bloated, unreliable, and full of cruft.



Agreed, but Linux is nowhere close to this.

--Andre

Funny, those are the complaints most people have about Windows operating systems. Not sure how you can say any of that though when you can run a lot of Linux distros directly off the CD without even having to install them on the hard drive, and some distros are so small and light they will run off a 128 meg USB stick.


Teger:

As far as a search based OS, I think that's a great idea....but I'm not sold on web based apps. As far as a browser based OS, well Microsoft already did that when they incorporated IE into the Windows shell (ugh).

I'll definitely use web based apps here at the office, since our version of MS Office is almost 10 years old now, but for home, I definitely want my apps residing on the hard drive.

Also Tokyo, it's not just appeasing that 20% who won't use Windows no matter what, it's the huge number of people who use Windows but hate it and often (rather vocally) yearn for a better alternative.

I'll agree Linux isn't ready for prime time, but it's day is coming. Improvements are coming fast and furious.

Also, there is another operating system currently being developed using the Windows API that will be free as well.

I don't see MS being brought down by Ubuntu, Apple, or any one OS or distribution. I see it being brought down but a multitude of OSes, highly customizable, and tailored to their users, from the beginner level all the way to advanced, and even legacy Microsoft OSes.

I know this is anecdotal experience and worthless, but I only know one person who plans on upgrading to Windows 7 from XP, just one. And I work in Intellectual Property litigation, so I'm typically surrounded by proprietary kinda guys heh.

Not claiming Microsoft is going to go out of business, or be crushed, or any ridiculous crap like that, nor would I want it. They make some great apps, like Outlook. I am just pretty damn sure that their market share has no where to go but down from here. I'm a Linux fanboy obviously, but we can thank Netscape for firing the first shot serverside, and thank Apple for doing a pretty damn good job of converting Windows users to OSX, even though I hate OSX and would rather use Windows if I had a choice between the two.

Originally Posted by Tokyo Slim

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Somehow I don't think MS is anywhere near panic mode. When you can effectively sell your product to 80% of the total available customers in your market - Why would you change your product to appease the 20% many of whom are unlikely to buy your product even if you give them what they want?

I think that unless MS loses another 20% of market share in the next 10 years or so, they are going to keep on pushing out product according to what is likely the most successful business model in the history of free market enterprise.

I don't see MS losing market share. In fact, I'd be shocked if Win 7 didn't boost it slightly.

MS today=GM in the 60's/70's, the dominant force with a rapidly declining market share due to better and cheaper products from nimbler and more innovative competitors.

Originally Posted by A Y

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Not really. It is slow, bloated, unreliable, and full of cruft.


Isn't javyn a lawyer? I'm wondering where he got the credentials to make these proclamations.

Anyway, the linux kernel is nice in that you can do with it what you want. You can strip tons of stuff out of it and compile it to suit your purposes, however, it is not what javyn describes it as. And I don't know how he'd directly compare the linux kernel to the windows kernel anyway...

I run both Ubuntu 9.04, and Win 7 RC1 at home. I have never crashed win 7, but I crashed Ubuntu a number of times. I'm talking total system freeze. I've had to reinistall it twice because somehow the bootloader or /boot partitition got fucked up during the crash and it wouldn't reboot. This is supposed to be a final product... Isn't the magical linux kernel supposed to isolate threads from each other to prevent such things? And how did my boot partition get screwed up twice?

Yes, linux distros have come a long way as far as installations and other things are concerned, but to compare it to Win7, or even XP in terms of ease of use, it ludicrous. I use linux because I have to. If I wasn't in networking, I wouldn't waste my hard drive space.

Originally Posted by GQgeek

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Isn't javyn a lawyer? I'm wondering where he got the credentials to make these proclamations.

A paralegal, IIRC. And AY is a Silicon Valley whiz.


Anyway, Google is still a one-trick pony. Over 95% of their revenue still come from advertising; all efforts to branch out (YouTube, Google Apps etc.) so far have been fruitless.

Some are calling the new announment a bluff: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/is-...n-just-a-bluff

Originally Posted by whacked

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A paralegal, IIRC. And AY is a Silicon Valley whiz.


Anyway, Google is still a one-trick pony. Over 95% of their revenue still come from advertising; all efforts to branch out (YouTube, Google Apps etc.) so far have been fruitless.

Some are calling the new announment a bluff: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/is-...n-just-a-bluff

Bleh, I would be distressed if Google ever happened to fail.

I use their search (obviously), Gmail, Google Talk (for voice chat as well as IM), Google Voice, Google 411 and Google Docs (sometimes). Some of these were tech taken over from other companies but I still luvs me da GOOG!

You got a point, I was only speaking from their financials.

Not a lawyer a paralegal.