Microsoft must be worried about Google’s plans to develop and release an OS. On the surface, Microsoft may put an insouciant air, but if Google succeeds in this project, Mircosoft’s future will not be bright. Microsoft depends on selling the Windows OS and its dominant position in this market. If Chrome OS robs Microsoft of its market share, it will find difficult to generate revenue.
Google is becoming the behemoth of the internet. It keeps innovating and is always ahead of its competitors in its core business: search engine. Its business model is based, ultimately, on doing this one thing, search, very well. The accuracy in search engine results means that Google can match more appropriate advertisements to the quries. Other activities are ancillary.
It will be difficult for competitors to play Google’s game and win. Google never ceased to improve and it has not become complacent, and has built a huge capital of expertise. Anyone who wishes to challenge Google can only do so by destroying how we use the internet as we are now accustomed to. At the moment, I don’t know what would that fundamental innovation be that will change the scene completely. Previously, producing good hardware made money, then good software, and now it’s connecting information on the web: what comes next?
A few years back, it would have been very brave, if not foolish, to predict the imminent demise of Microsoft. And it is too early to write Microsoft’s obituaries or dance on its marked grave: now it is Microsoft who is the challenger. We shall see what Microsoft can do.
How things have changed, and how things will change.