Mutually assured desctruction ... no way

Yesterday, the NYT op-ed ran an essay by Robert X. Cringely in which he argues that Google and Microsoft compete with each other not to usurp the other because their interest are entangled. And, the only reason why Google is shooting across the bow of big, bad Microsoft by announcing Chrome OS is to simply keep Microsoft, "on their toes."

Microsoft makes most of its money from two products, Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office. Nearly everything else it makes loses money, sometimes deliberately. Google makes most of its money from selling Internet ads next to search results. Nearly everything else it does loses money, too.

Neither company really cares because both make so much from their core products that it simply doesn’t matter. But companies, like people, strive and dream and in this case both dream, at least sometimes, of destroying the other. Only they can’t — or won’t — do it in the end, because it is against the interests of either company to do so.

Crigley goes on to point out that most of Google's search request originate from Microsoft PCs, and that has "facilitated so much of [Google's] success." And that Google's real fear is that Microsoft will one day block access to Google's servers (can someone say "anti-trust").

I'm sorry, but that is all bull sh*t. Google really does have a shot to usurp Mircsoft, and their is no mutually assured destruction. The whole point of Google's develop model is that the browser is the OS, and in most ways they are right.

The Chrome browser is a simulated operating system. It handles multiple processes (a.k.a. tabs), schedules tasks (a.k.a. applets, javascripts, html rendering), and handles input, output, and visualization (a.k.a. what you see, type, and print).

Imagine a world of cheep (netbook like) PC's that run a minimal operating system (Chrome OS) and run only one program, the browser (Chrome). Within the browser you have your email, office products, calendar, telephone, and whatever else Google comes up with. All of these programs are free to the user (with advertising, paid for without), and the computer is a quarter of the cost because you don't have to pay for a stupid Windows licence (even when you don't want it).

If I were Microsoft, I would be worried. But, not that worried.

What Microsoft has that Google doesn't is coperations signed on for what seems the like the long haul. Their tech departments aren't just going to change over to a new OS overnight, and why would a coperation trust Google to store all their trade secrets on some server in Iowa? Plus, there are a lot of f*cking computers at these coperations and that is a lot of Windows and Office licences. Microsoft isn't going to fade away overnight.

The fact is, Google cannot completely obliterate Microsoft, but it can give them a serious body blow in the consumer market. That is where Microsoft is weakest, and that is where Google is attacking. It isn't going to happen all at once, and hey, it could be some other start-up that lands the punch, as Crigley points out, but it is only a matter of time.

One thing is clear, Google doesn't need Microsoft.