Google's biggest gamble to date = flameout?

Google vs. Microsoft, place your bets.

Microsoft hands down

Google is going to take its sweet time. Android and Chrome are just the tip of the wedge.

Google knows data management like no one else, they have technological infrastructure and i'm sure know how to optimize it well, they have exposure and their OS will be licensed open source for major developers. - all of this is a huge advantage at their fingertips. will be fair and adequate competition for MS

google who else

What they didn't mention is how MS is driving traffic to Bing - by advertising on Google.
Any bets that Google is charging MS big bucks to send them crappy traffic that Google
already knows the true value of? The word "bing" is defined by dictionary.com as "a heap
or pile". I'd like to ask MS "Bing is a heaping pile of what, exactly?"

The author of the article also seems to be missing the point of Chrome OS. Chrome OS
isn't designed to be like Windows. That concept was nice in 1987, but it's 22 years later
and Google thinks it's time for a new concept. My brother expressed the idea well close
to ten years ago. He had asked me how big my hard drive was, and was a little surprised
when he found out it wasn't huge. Then he had a realization - "the internet IS your drive",
he said. Exactly. Chrome OS, designed for netbooks, doesn't need 2GB of RAM to run
bloated office software - the browser runs Google Docs, which provides your spreadsheets,
word processor, etc. There's no need for anything like Outlook to run on the computer - you
have gmail in the browser. The main purpose of the OS is just to run the browser - everything
else happens on line. Take 5 minutes to launch MS Streets and Trips? No thanks,
Google maps is better and faster - and free. With the Google OS approach, the software
is all free, so that saves hundreds of dollars. Most of the software runs on their servers,
not on the netbook, so a $200 netbook is all you need rather than GBs of RAM for Windows.
Software updates, dependencies, all of those hassles are gone when the software is a web site.
So the Google approach makes the computer faster, cheaper, and less hassle.

There are a few things you'll want to do locally, like plug in your MP3 player and transfer music.
That's no problem. I've been running Linux exclusively for many years and Linux can do
everything I need to do - without Google having even touched it yet. All Google, Acer, and
other partners need to do is smooth over a few of the minor rough spots.

There is one and only one reason I've ever run any MS software in the last ten years - to see
it's bugs. Someone tells me there is a bug in IE7 where it doesn't render our graphs correctly,
so I launch IE7 only to deal with it's bugs. 99.9% of users don't WANT bugs, so they have no
need for MS software, if you give them the better options presented in a way that makes sense
to them. Even those two times each year that I launch IE, I still do that within Linux.

The challenge for Google isn't to be more like Windows, but to present the new system to
users in way that makes it easy to use. The user who wants to work on a spreadsheet will
initially go to the programs menu, then the office sub-menu. There had better be an entry
for "Google Spreadsheets" there.

I like the idea but lets face it, everything you get is ms office format or pdf these days. The article claims the small computers aren't selling with out vista and I had heard otherwise. I am curious to know which is true?

if anyone can it's google. they have the power, money, knowledge and name recognition to make this a real challenge.

Microsoft needs to pile more resources on to the "Beat Google" project. Not just money but more technology and really squeeze their network advantage HARD.

If Microsoft doesn't get its shit together QUICK, it'll be curtain in 5 years or earlier. Really. No joke. The tech marketplace works based on "network effect"--quick cascading exponential effect.

It will be one hell of a fight. HP, Lenovo, Acer and a few others have already been working on Chrome OS with Google. The advantages that Google have - it is open source and free. If HP offers a Chrome OS version of their computers how much cheaper will the be than the ones running Windows?

I think Google is going to blow us away real soon. I also thought the Wii was a ridiculous idea that wouldn't sell.

These are just file formats. Lots of open source software have been able to read these for 10 years.

So I'm supposed to rely on the internet to run my OS, when I already have to wait 2 minutes just to buffer a stupid faceplant vid on YouTube?

Your post would be reasonable if everyone had the same bandwidth available and consistent access. A lot of people globally are still on dialup.

Google & Apple just need to fuck already and make a baby and name it Gopple... lol

In the long run it will come down to who can make it into the companies that actually BUILD/SELL the computers.

You are DEAD ON about this--Google cannot take on Microsoft alone. It needs Apple to do it. Together they can topple Microsoft. Good luck with that.

First off, Microsoft is already going to launch products to compete with Google's offerings.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/1c2cfb40-6...44feabdc0.html

So Microsoft is not behind the times here at all.

Second, people underestimate how incredibly hard it is to dethrone Microsoft because they have such a huge installed base of customers. It works like this. Even if Google came out with a product that was a million times better than anything Microsoft offered, Microsoft could come out with a similar product faster than the marketplace would adopt Google's new offering. They simply can't lose on a product by product basis no matter what Google comes out. Google would have to come out with product, after product, after product, that beats Microsoft to even make a dent.

I'm not an Microsoft fanboy, but Microsoft has a huge advantage.

Reading this thread is like watching a Boxing match. We're still in Round 2, guys. 10 more rounds to go. Now if Apple and Yahoo jumped in the ring and helped Google fuck Microsoft up kinda like WWF, it would be awesome LOLllllllllllllllllllllllll

LOL. The hot anchor chicks from CNBC could be the ring girls. Now that's a business channel I would watch.

lets just hope goo dies and bing becomes the new means for search engines

It amazes me how some people still go out of their way to kiss Google's ass. Chrome is WebKit - wow, it's almost Safari with threads and a halfassed ECMAscript. Woop-de-fucking do.

I love uninformed opinions.

Will work for surfers... But professionals would never use it.

Methinks corporate users would welcome a more secure thin client ala Google Chrome. Lower cost, less risk of loss of sensitive data, higher security, and lower licensing fees from using web apps instead of being raped for licenses of office.

Either way should be a good fight, Google with an OS market share of 0 (zero) can only go up, MS with a desktop market share over 70% can only go down.

true, true..