To challenge Google, Microsoft might want to think Apple
The announcement of Google's Chrome OS plan puts an exclamation point on the challenge faced by Microsoft, but actually doesn't really change the core threat to Microsoft.
In short, Google is aiming to render desktop software irrelevant. To thwart them, Microsoft needs Windows to do things that a browser can't--or do the same things significantly better.
Interestingly, if Microsoft wants some tips on how to do this, it might want to look toward Apple. Essentially, this has been Apple's challenge all along: make the Mac experience enough better than a generic PC that it is worth the added cost.
The Mac's resurgence came when it had a strong OS--Mac OS X--combined with iLife applications that really nailed the experience for the tasks that people wanted to do on their computer at the time.
If Microsoft wants a blueprint on how to make the PC worth paying for, it might want to take a page from Apple's playbook.
(Credit: Apple)This is an area where Windows has been languishing in recent years. Although most people wouldn't want to give up their favorite desktop applications (Windows or Mac), the Web has been gaining ground. Even areas that were once squarely in the desktop's domain--such as photo editing, productivity software, and personal finance--are making their way onto the Web. What Windows really needs is a new generation of killer apps.
Microsoft also has to do something that Apple doesn't--aim for the masses. Part of Apple's success story has been about choosing its battles and accepting that it can't win everywhere. The Windows model depends on ubiquity, so it needs answers with nearly universal appeal.
One area where Microsoft has been investing is around the area of doing the same things better. Its focus on touch screens in Windows 7 is an example of this. Although multitouch is likely to remain a niche in the short term, it shows the power that a desktop interface can have.
Microsoft also needs to minimize the downsides associated with Windows. On that score, Microsoft has made significant strides with Windows 7. The operating system boots quicker and behaves better than its predecessor.
On the Office side, Microsoft needs to create software that is enough better than Google's that companies want to pay for it.
Next week, Microsoft is expected to talk more about Office 2010, the next version of Office, which is due out next year. Microsoft is taking a two-pronged approach.
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First, it is taking Google Apps head-on with lightweight browser-based versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote that can run on Safari, Firefox, and Internet Explorer.
It will offer them to consumers via its Windows Live service--a service that today is free--and businesses will also be able to give the browser-based apps to their workers.
But Microsoft is also doing more on the desktop, adding in the kinds of features it hopes will make the Office suite worth paying for.
The path for Microsoft is clear. The big question, though, is whether Google will be able to be "good enough."
Microsoft has some time, but not a ton. Google's operating system won't even arrive on PCs until the second half of next year. Plus, for now, Windows has the advantage of legacy application support--i.e., businesses and consumers want to run their existing programs. But to stay in front for years to come, it will have to do better than that. It needs to figure out--and quick--the next set of tasks users want to do with their computer and how to make those tasks demonstrably better on a PC.
The company also has another option as well. It can work on Windows' successor. It could be that it needs a lightweight browser-based OS of its own.
Indeed, the thinking beyond its Gazelle research project is that the browser needs to be more like an operating system. In that case, the browser doesn't actually take on the operating system's complete role, but rather relies on Windows. However, Microsoft has other operating system work under way as well, including its top-secret Midori project.
My guess is Microsoft will take both approaches, but hold off on the latter unless and until it needs to. That's pretty much what Microsoft has done with Office vis-a-vis Google Apps. It was only after large business customers started threatening to go to Google Apps that Microsoft conceded that it needed to offer full-on browser apps.
During her years at CNET News, Ina Fried has changed beats several times, changed genders once, and covered both of the Pirates of Silicon Valley. These days, most of her attention is focused on Microsoft. E-mail Ina. 
'course, HP and Dell would freak out, but it would likely be enough of an impetus for them to start building their own OS, or incorporating Google's or...?
All Google needs to do is make an Android phone/device the perfect companion to their OS, and they will gouge Apple right where it makes its money.
Regardless, this should be fun to watch unfold.
Microsoft, in trying to be everything to everybody, is getting it from both ends now.
Quick - if all OEMs in existence shifted to Google's OS tomorrow morning and sold nothing else, which OS maker would be in the most jeopardy? Hint: Apple itself is an OEM as well, so think carefully about this one...
Apple it should be remembered isn't in the OS business, its in the hardware business, its OS is just an engineering part of that.
Apple has demonstrated time again that it is not shy about dropping tech for the future. End of 68x, End of OS9, End of PPC, the list goes on. If there was a compelling reason to move Mac to Google OS and Apple was able to tie it closely to their hardware they wouldn't bat an eyelid.
There is only ONE OS vendor in the world, its Microsoft, UNIX isn't vendor based and MacOS is UNIX anyway.
"Anything that further damages Microsoft's stifling grip on the majority of personal computers is A Good Thing?. However, as Mac users, we already have the superior computing experience that Google sounds like they're trying to deliver, so we have little use for an embryonic, unproven OS running on a network computer that's trying to deliver but a subset of what we already have. Google's trying to bring a more Mac-like experience to the Windows sufferers when Macs already exist. We're not big on reinventing the wheel. It's Android all over again; just get an iPhone already. (You'll even have apps.)
Again, some will ask, "Who needs another poor man's Mac? Why doesn't Apple just release OS X Snow Leopard for generic PCs?" Of course, it's not quite that easy (supporting reams of often shoddy hardware configurations is a nightmare, just ask Microsoft), but Apple could do it correctly by working with select PC box assemblers to license OS X for Apple-certified hardware that maintains quality levels. Certainly, the PC box assemblers would stampede over each other for the chance to license OS X for their hardware.
Apple has long had enough revenue streams from other products to take whatever hit to Mac hardware sales might occur. Plus, there might not even be a decline as expansion of the Mac platform might actually increase Apple's Mac sales as the great unwashed awaken to the painfully obvious fact that A Life Without Walls Precludes the Need for Windows.
Your reporter bios are amazing.
Then make new technology that is easier to use than Google's, and costs at least twice if not three times as much because it is marketed as easier to use than Google's technology.
That's a sorry perception. I use and recommend Mac OSX to clients these days, in 99 though I recommended Windows NT 4. Apple didn't brain wash me and I don't brain wash clients. It is simply about using best of class at a given time. This also means for some potential clients, they aren't mine, because their best of class might really be Windows and I would tell them as such and direct them toward someone who could serve their needs.
A large client of mine a recently asked me about my business and what I would be doing in 10 years, I said, probably not working with Macs because I doubt that Apple will continue to be best of class for that long. I simply don't care what OS I am using as long as it is the current best of class.
Windows 7 sounds great, but isn't enough YET to make me recommend a return to Windows. I personally suspect in 10 years there will be no OS in its current form, perhaps a collection of ISO standards, perhaps the return of Applications running direct on hardware through FPGA's if they are ready by then.
Mac's do have a marginal premium, so what, if its about penny pinching I don't want the client cause they will be penny pinching me over some razor thin margin anyway. If its about cost then you must be a Linux user, or actually not even a computer user at all since paper and pen is significantly cheaper and still lets you write a document.
Apple uses software, services, and content to drive sales of its high-margin hardware. Apple's goal is to make the "out of the box" user experience to be very enjoyable.
Microsoft's business is mostly about office applications and broad distribution of its desktop OS to PC manufactures.
What Microsoft really needs to do is a complete rewrite of Windows and create something extensible that scales well, from handheld devices to servers. In necessary, they should break compatibility with legacy devices and software. Apple did this with OS X (they included Classic Mode for legacy OS 9 applications and Rosetta for PPC code).
This rewrite should include a browser-as-an-OS plan.
Yes commit suicide... what a great idea. Open up a new world of possibilites how exactly? By embrassing an open standard which is dictated by the community at large? Yes that's a great idea... hahahaaahahahahahahhaaa!!
I see very little evidence to support the contention they are working harder as they are bloated with middle management and their stock has moved next to 'not at all'. Why? Because they are the largest software company in the world and own the majority of computing experiences.
Fact is, the market is theirs to lose.
Microsoft needs to focus on their core business... software. They need to start turning their technology into cool products first, and not care about what Apple is doing.
If they stopped the bashing and paying reviewers to bash and actually went on THE MERITS OF THE OS's..... Apple would lose every single time, because their computers are SIMPLY TOO DAMNED EXPENSIVE!
When I can get 2 gaming PC's for what I would spend on ONE Mac...... HELL NO! (screams this out!) Apple has LOST a potential customer until they LOWER THEIR FREAKING PRICES.
Yes, their marketing theme is based around ease of use and if they didn't fulfill this promise customers wouldn't keep coming back for more. Besides, their whole business is based on complete control of the software and hardware so it would be kind of weird if their tech wasn't genuinely easy to use. Of course if you don't like the configuration they provide and prefer to make more of your own decisions then go to wintel. But just because it isn't your favorite business model doesn't make it delusional.
Hmmm. While they're at it, maybe they need to release the Windows Levi-Strauss version and the Windows Ghetto version. Perhaps even a Cracked Windows version wherein you can only use 3 applications at one time...
no...wait....
Different categories, different products. Both work.
While Apple may be focusing on education and home computing at the moment, don't think for a minute that they do not also have their eye on the business world. Did you hear about London...?
no...wait...."
No wait what? They removed that restriction troll. If your going to talk junk atleast be informed.
I'm well aware that MS recanted that restriction on the basic version of Windows - strictly due to public outrage on the Internet. Had that story not headlined, MS would have gone ahead with what was a terrible idea from the get-go. Does anyone agree that was a terrible idea? Anyone?
So let's try to show a bit more prudence about name-calling, monkeyfun14.
How long did it take Apple to 'innovate' copy and paste on the iPhone? I find it funny how they seem to pretend to have invented the very concept for mobile devices.
Just sayin...
I will give credit to Google - at least the company's trying a different paradigm, regardless of how it won't change the fact that I gots to have me some Photoshop running locally rather than on this whole ethereal cloud-thingie.
I'm not so certain. To thwart them, Microsoft can rely on the vast majority of computer users to be completely comfortable with the OS they are currently using (which is Windows), regardless of its superiority or inferiority. Seems to me this is a conditioning issue.
If all you've ever known is waking up every morning, beating yourself with a leather belt, and calling that act "macaroni," most folks would do it because that's all they've ever known. Me, I use a Mac, so I wake up every morning, beat myself with a leather belt, and call it "sherbert." Same torture, just different vernacular.
Maybe at some point some company - maybe even Google - could eliminate the "beat self with leather belt" part of the metaphor.
Just sayin'.
Seriously, complacency is an issue in the computing experience and, I suspect, why we're still using the "desktop" as a metaphor. "What I use is good enough..." Almost as much of an issue as fooling yourself into believing that one corporation is better than another from a consumer's standpoint.
where are you writing from, enoughbetterthanstan?
I really hope Google is successful in gaining market share in the OS arena. Perhaps then we will see some real innovations and technological advances by all the players.
People are buying netbooks because they do pretty well what most people want to do with a laptop, read email and browse the web. Neither require powerful CPUs, lots of memory, or specialized applications.
For many who use web bail, a browser suffices. For people who still prefer POP3 or IMAP mail, add a mail client. In either case, it will cost you around $300 and for that you get something light and sturdy enough to through in your backpack or briefcase without worrying about it. Since netbooks are really as powerful as the PCs we were buying a few years ago, if you need to do more connect it to your old monitor and keyboard and you can easily and comfortably perform tasks like basic word processing.
This plus the recession explain why netbooks now account for 20 percent of all PCs and I have no doubt that the market share will grow while standard laptop sales are flat and desktop sales have dropped.
The appeal of "good enough" is also illustrated by the relative failure of Office 2007. Sure the new ribbon bar is pretty and though it might annoy veterans like myself it does provide a better learning experience for new users. However, it really doesn't do anything that Office 2003 or XP don't do, which is why they still dominate the productivity suite market...they are good enough. In the meantime this failure has given room for alternative solutions like OpenOffice, Symphony, and GoogleDocs...all of which are also good enough.
Will Chrome or Android become as popular as Windows or as powerful as OS X...no. But I am quite sure both will be good enough to gain their fair share of adherents and given the strength of the Google brand, that could be a significant number of people.
For that, a netbook (unless they are smart enough to trade some battery life for discrete graphics performance) isn't going to be good enough.
Reflections on Chrome
What was your first reaction to Google Chrome OS?
o Microsoft is toast.
o Google is the new Microsoft.
o I'll be all Google all the time.
o Meh. I'm happy with Mac OS.
o Linux under the hood. Hurrah!
No bias there.. no siree...
o Microsoft loses
o Microsoft loses - Google wins - but ends up being Microsoft (boo hisss)
o Microsoft loses
o Microsoft loses
o Microsoft loses
Yep. Let me add another one:
o Give up Windows for an OS written by a company that wants to lock me into their Internet services? Yeah - right. Pull the other one.
Disney has a very big controlling interest in Apple
Disney owns ABC
ABC owns CNET
Think about it...
Actually CBS owns c|net but they are still very biased and probably get paid to post this garbage.
Disney has no interest in Apple but Steve Jobs became a major shareholder of Disney when they bought Pixar.
Not quite as ambitious as your conspiracy theory: CNET is all about driving traffic through their news stories and getting eyeballs on their ads. Seems the best way to do this is to post up deliberately provocative content to pit google, linux, apple and microsoft trolls against each other. And it's working!
In addition to this the conspiracy theorists will not install google of for "big brother" reasons.
I'll probably try it for a day or two and after that I'll return to my previous program, Windows Vista.
The poll is unfair to Microsoft, I want an option "I'm happy with Windows, Suck it Aplle and Google!"
However, the interesting thing is that it is a lot easier for Google to improve than it will be for Microsoft, Apple or LINUX community. And Google will have freedom to innovate without being beholden to existing customers and backwards-compatibility. For example, there are a LOT of people who simply don't like or have the wherewithal to setup and maintain their computers (Windows or Mac) who will truly love a very simple, trouble-free, computing experience *even if you can't run complex visual basic macros, or do fancy formatting, or any other advanced thing*.
Anyway, while we (I count myself as a computer geek elite) turn down our nose at the limitations of a Google approach, that simply gives Google room to improve their product until it hits a sufficiency point and then suddenly they'll be a winner for all low-end computing.
Point is, if they start fanning out too much developing "killer apps that compete with third parties" they're basically shooting themselves in both feet: 1) Taking more focus of what's made them successful 2) Pissing off those third parties. If they have a success with Windows 7 and uptake on their new developer tools it'll be a bountiful next few years for Microsoft. I look forward to watching from the sidelines /popcorn
- by andromorr July 10, 2009 12:22 PM PDT
- I must say this is one of the least thought out article I've read on this topic.
- Like this Reply to this comment
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Showing 1 of 2 pages (62 Comments)Firstly, Ina, your very first two lines start out odd - who is the challenger here, Google, or Microsoft? I believe that rather than Google, it is definitely Microsoft which has the upper hand.
Your second statement, about an operating system needing to do what a browser can't, is almost hilarious. While I agree mundane tasks can be accomplished using a web-app, they will never truly replace native software. The internet simply lacks the very fundamental concepts which makes native apps popular - the fact that they're "in your computer", a file system, the programming capability and local resources immediately available, etc. The ability to store documents in your own physical disk. Google will turn in your data the moment it's asked by local authorities - I'm a lawyer working on such a case. And Google is really not known for its excellent user-privacy protection record. I'm sure organisations would be wary of that. Beyond such applications, you forget other industries which rely heavily on computers - graphic designers, animation and visual effects specialists, etc. Mac or not, Web-apps simply can't hope to gain a dominance in this market. And let us not forget that ubiquitous high speed internet is a myth, if not in the US, then in the remaining 90% of the world.
I really suggest you take a look at your article and work out your biases - Office is way ahead of any other suite - web or native, and Microsoft has really done some good work with Windows 7 - not the "same all over again, just better." Which, I might add, Google is guilty of doing, since Ubuntu is already trying to achieve, and is years ahead of what Google dreams of achieving. And has not been very successful so far.
I really did not like that poll either. Not a single option that says Microsoft will dominate this war, just like it has managed to do so with every other "killer-OS" (read: distros) which were touted to be better.