OP: Is There a Difference Between Google & MSFT?
Late last night Google announced that it is working on a Chrome operating system. As was the case with the Chrome browser, the company plans to focus on speed and simplicity. Users want to boot up their computers and get online as quickly as possible and Google wants to help them do that. Similar to Chrome, its all open source and like Chrome, all anyone can talk about is what the news will mean for Microsoft.
You guys don't need the history lesson, so I'll skip the part where we go into huge detail about Google's launch as a search engine before it moved onto Gmail, Google Maps, Google Earth, Google Calendar, Gtalk, Google Docs, Latitude and everything else Google does and just ask you this, what's the difference between Microsoft trying to be everything at once and Google trying to be everything at once?
Over the last two years, people have been getting more and more excited about the prospect of a Google operating system. With the arrival of Android, that chatter has died down a little and instead, we're waiting with baited breath for the first Android-powered netbook or laptop, not to mention all the Android handsets on the horizon. That said, the eager anticipation is still there; we're still waiting for an OS from a company that made our search engine.
Then there’s the flip side that; a significant amount people criticize Microsoft for trying to be too many things at once. Windows, Bing, Internet Explorer; they hate monolithic Microsoft, but monolithic, colorful Google is a great idea.
Both companies have a ton of great products. Google supplies my browser, personal email and calendar and Microsoft supplies my word processor, office email client and OS. That said, to me it seems like Microsoft's efforts have made the company spread itself too thin, but Google's efforts give the impression of the company slowly but surely spreading out like some gross blob in a horror movie. It won't be long before the company enters another market, and then another, but why is it that no matter how hard I try, I can't bring myself to have a problem with it? I gave my brother a bell and asked him his opinion on this. Being a tech blogger, anthropologist and social networking guru/PR at a large European e-tailer he had this to add: It's not about perceived value, it's about perceived cost. Google offers the vast majority of its services for free, Microsoft charges you cold, hard cash. If a Google service stops working, it's not a tragedy because you weren't paying for it anyway. The opposite side of the coin is you spend a lump of cash putting MS Office and Windows on every machine in your house, an update knocks the whole thing down like a house of cards and you wait x amount of time for a fix. While you're waiting you think about the money you spent on the product that should be working but isn't.
What do you guys think? This one is definitely personal opinion. So, are you celebrating Google's foray into the OS market or are you fashioning yourself a tin-foil hat and refusing to let Google into yet another area of your computing experience? Further, do you think there's any difference between what Google is trying to do and what Microsoft is trying to do and most importantly, do you have a problem with the whole "one company for everything" concept? Let us know in the comments below!
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The difference is quite obvious, as was stated above - Google gives back to its users by offering its services for free/open-source. How can you possibly go wrong?
whatever works to your needs. if you just want a netbook for the net then if the chrome os and chrome web browser work faster for you use it. but if you want to do other stuff like run apps that would only run on a windows system,,.... then duel boot ;-)
it is ok because it is free, in this way you have a choise, it is not like they are twisting your arm, and we will see if it will be good.
+1 to all above comments.
Quite simply, Google give back by through free use of its services or all projects are Open Source. As a result, it costs nothing to try their products and they're always offered as a choice.
Microsoft just doesn't do any of that. Everything they do is proprietary and thus locked-down and they've been known to use their market position to dominate, remove choice and abuse monopolies. All this creates a feeling of distrust, especially when their products are lacking, behind-the-times or simply don't work (IE is a perfect example - stop trying to rewrite the thing over and over and continually getting it wrong, just build on an Open Source project get it better quicker and save yourself a ton of cash).
There's nothing wrong with wanting to make money, put Microsoft are old-school and these days that capitalist, ego-centric business approach garners a ton of ill-feeling.
Google are new-breed and a lot more approachable and friendly-feeling. Step on their toes or breech their patents and no doubt they'll legally rape your face off, but that's the way they PROTECT themselves in the market, not how they COMPETE in the market.
I am really unimpressed with the "free" argument. For many things it is important.. but any system with multiple inputs suffers from diminishing returns.
The argument people use for "free" software is that if you have 10,000 people then its 10,000x software cost savings.
At the most ideal situation where that choice has no training / productivity cost and you have monkeys working for you it might be ok (i.e public sector).
If you work at most small / mid sized companies the numbers, imo, speak for themselves.
- Say you have 100 people average of 70,000pa
- Windows costs you 200 a person (its probably nothing really with the way the most people buy computers, linux is only free when you buy a computer without windows... and that usually isnt even cheaper)
- Office maybe 400-700 a person at most.
They are microsofts two cash cows... so thats $900 for say 2-5 years which serves for a $140,000 - $350,000 person.
Its just chump change, it doesnt matter. There are definately business and personal cases where LAMP / *nix + FOSS can save you money.. but i think the general case is usualy personal choice. As always, use what you like and know best.. what you can use to deliver the most value. The cost isn't an issue in most cases.
Microsoft is an outdated company with old income models. They're wising up slowly, but Google is hyper-modern. Right on the front line of pulling the train of development. Microsoft is following the pack. While I like Windows, the rest of their products lag behind.
I would guess that either they spend too long trying to maintain backwards compatibility with their older software, and try to increase profit margins by employing as few staff as possible, thus truely spreading themselves thinly.
Google on the other hand has not got as much history and probably (I don't know if they do) has more engineers, or at least, more engineers working on relevant projects. I still think Microsoft should just say "f*ck off" to the IE6 websites and make IE8 completely from the ground up without trying to appease the crowd stuck in the pre-2006 era, like a lot of web developers are starting to do now.
@arsemaker:
Be as impressed (or not) as you wish with the "free" argument but in the case of Google it is one of their biggest attractions - they get their money through recognition, investment and charging appropriate amounts of money in an appropriate way i.e. when it starts to cost them money they'll recoup it, and it's really only at the enterprise level do their services cost them anything.
The Google Maps API is a good example: doesn't cost me a penny to use until my website requires something like 1000 unique image lookups a day. Then I'll have to pay for it. Their servers aren't significantly taxed until I hit that threshold and I'm unlikely to be making very much money from a website that operates below that threshold anyway.
On the flipside, Microsoft I'm sure would charge me to use their equivalent service if they had the chance. To them and their old-school ways it's all about supply and demand, and where there's demand there's a revenue stream.
Free doesn't necessarily mean better, but humans flock to the freebies first.
Microsoft really needs a strong and healthy competition in the OS market (or should I say, we need it). Anyway, with so many Microsoft users, the Google OS needs to be pretty dam good if its to make a strong impact. And for that, experience is needed. I think Microsoft OS's will stay on top for years to come.
P.S. Fast-load-OS isn't something that will make big impact. There is already software like that (Asus Express Gate is what I use on my laptop). We don't need that. We need a complete OS.
Nice article. I feel the same way. I don't have a problem with the fat google blog of horror either! I normally would... but to me everything they do is the bees knees. I am a total Gmail convert, and I do things I wouldn't normally bother with, like reading their blogs and get all excited like a kid when they are bringing out something new. It's very sad.
Man all I can say there wouldnt be any "Google" if thr were no OS from Microsoft Linux and MAC...People now i think is spoiled with heaps of online/offline techs open source or not. What im trying to say dont criticize Microsoft too much...it's i think the most used OS internationally. I'm not trying to to protect Microsoft thou coz I aswell have a Hacked Microsoft OS with heaps of good stuff on my harddrive and an old google clone script(where before i was thinking of mkiing my own search engine but fail, lol),hehehe...