Google OS Poses Double Whammy Threat to Microsoft

About this time I should have already posted today's piece, Google made a surprise, albeit long rumored, announcement it is developing a desktop operating system and intending to release it in 2010.

According to Google, the Google Chrome OS is the natural extension of the Google Chrome browser:

We designed Google Chrome for people who live on the web — searching for information, checking email, catching up on the news, shopping or just staying in touch with friends. However, the operating systems that browsers run on were designed in an era where there was no web. So today, we're announcing a new project that's a natural extension of Google Chrome — the Google Chrome Operating System. It's our attempt to re-think what operating systems should be.

Google Chrome OS is an open source, lightweight operating system that will initially be targeted at netbooks.

Google Chrome OS will run on both x86 as well as ARM chips and we are working with multiple OEMs to bring a number of netbooks to market next year. The software architecture is simple — Google Chrome running within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel. For application developers, the web is the platform.

A Google OS has long been rumored, with OS News for example theorizing on it four years ago and, rather impressively, predicting it by 2010.  But with Google's attention on mobile devices via the development of Android OS, a Google desktop OS had drifted off the rumor radar.

The Threat to Microsoft

Netbooks are the fastest growing segment of the desktop market at the moment and one that is icing on the cake for Microsoft. In dollar terms it could cope with large loss of market share in the netbook market. The problem is the ramifications if the Google OS philosophy gains too strong a foothold.

Netbooks have captured the public's imagination but I've often predicted their imminent demise. They fall into a difficult middle ground of confused identity. Too small to be a decent laptop, too large to drop in your pocket. For those reasons, you see many on eBay, especially with owners trading up to larger sized laptops.

Purchasers had been buying netbooks expecting more of them. This in itself could have been due to the presence of Windows.

Google's approach, defining it as a web device, could help give netbooks their own identity, with no confusion from perspective buyers about the netbook's role in the technology hierarchy.

With that established, a Google netbook would then come at Microsoft with its more dangerous weapon - the Google productivity apps. Not only have you then weaned users off Microsoft OS, but you've also plunged a knife into its cash cow, Microsoft Office.

As that quote says, Google is initially aiming at netbooks. Once that ground is secure it will then look to conquer the broader desktop market. And with the public's mindest prized free of Microsoft that may be easier than expected.

It should be noted, the Google OS, being web-based, as currently described, would still only be able to take a limited chunk of the desktop market as many people still run larger apps, like movie editing, that are still a few years away from being viable as a web app.

The Threat to Apple

With the Google Chrome OS initially aimed at netbooks, Apple's desktop market is under no more threat than it is from Linux or Windows based netbooks. However, if Apple does enter the netbook market itself, then it could get a little interesting. On the flip side though, if Apple does enter the netbook market, it will be with a device intended to redefine netbooks. 

Of course, by aiming this as a web-based desktop OS, Google is attempting to redefine the netbook also. So, we could end up with an interesting arm wrestle over what netbooks should become.

Microsoft has a lot more to lose than Apple from Google's entry into the OS market. Most market share gained by Google would come directly from Microsoft. But it's the double whammy, the shifting of people's mindset away from Microsoft Office, which poses the greater threat to Microsoft.

If Apple plays its cards right, it can tiptoe around the periphery of this bun fight and come out relatively unscathed but Microsoft could come out hemorrhaging