Almost by definition, it’s the most direct attack possible on the Microsoft hegemony, since it puts Google into competition with Windows itself. Google announced tonight that it’s working on an operating system for PCs, turning a hypothetical scenario that’s been around for years into reality. But by focusing so much attention on a venture that’s unlikely to do the company any good, Google will only hurt itself.Here’s one of those breaking stories that’s stunning at first–until you think about it, whereupon it feels like it was always inevitable. When you’ve got money to burn, why not? Microsoft often does things for no reason other than to frustrate its rivals-its new search engine Bing being a prime example. But a gangster would call this move what it really is: The point of Chrome OS-the only point of Chrome OS-is to screw with Microsoft.Īnd that’s fine.

If 20 percent of the world’s computer users switched from Windows to Chrome, would that help Google’s bottom line? Sure, all those people would now be using Gmail and Google Docs-but they could have been doing that in Windows, too! An MBA might describe the Chrome OS as a wasteful customer acquisition expense Google would be wiser to use all the cash that it’s pouring into developing the new program for advertising instead.

Thus you can think of Google’s investment in Android as a kind of loss leader-it gives away the OS for free in the hope that billions of people around the world will one day use Android-like phones to click on ads at the gym.īut the Chrome project is unencumbered by any such rationale. It made sense for Google to create its own mobile phone OS, for instance, because there were few great operating systems that would deliver the Web to phones-and Google’s future depends on the Internet being available everywhere, all the time.

Google chrome os 2009