Chrome OS Not Exactly a “Death Knell” for Windows
by John Paczkowski
Posted on July 9, 2009 at 8:11 AM PT
After a bit of reflection, the Street is beginning to have its say about Google’s new Chrome operating system, and the consensus seems to be that while Chrome is obviously the company’s most direct assault on Windows to date, it’s not likely to be all that disruptive to the ubiquitous OS. “It’s not good news for Microsoft,” said FBR Capital Markets analyst David Hilal. “The real question right now is how bad can it be?”
Answer: probably not all that bad. As Yankee Group analyst Joshua Martin notes, Chrome is hardly a Windows killer. “The Chrome OS isn’t the final bullet in the war between Google and Microsoft, rather it’s merely a shot across the bow,” Martin wrote in a note to clients. “Google’s targeting of netbooks will reduce Window’s market share of this high growth category, but the effect will only be slightly greater than the introduction of Linux-based netbooks.”
In other words, Chrome will prove more a nagging irritant to Microsoft (MSFT) than anything else–at least initially. And while it will presumably increase the use of Google’s (GOOG) Web services and applications, it’s not going to be unseating Windows, the darling of enterprise, anytime soon.
Writes Bernstein analyst Jeffrey Lindsay: “Although the Chrome OS will initially be released for netbooks, Google indicated that it could eventually be used to power full-size desktop systems. However, it is unclear how much traction Google could gain in this market, as the Chrome OS would presumably not be compatible with Windows based programs. Instead, Google would need to rely on people to more fully adopt web-based services (a long-dated proposition), or for software developers to port their applications over to Chrome OS.”
And if that’s the case, it’s going to be a long time before we see Windows application compatibility, which is key to this particular battle. Until then, Chrome OS will perform about as well as Linux has in the netbook market, which is to say, not well at all. “It will take quite a long time for Google to become a competitor to Microsoft,” said Gartner analyst Michael Silver. “In the enterprise, for example, over 70% of the applications used require Windows. And even at home, things like personal finance still require Windows. So, while I think this is a longer-term threat to Microsoft, it’s definitely not in the short term.”
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Comments
I love these jokers who wax poetic about Google’s threat to Microsoft with nary a mention of Apple or OS X. It takes a long time to turn a big ship around, but Apple has been intent on doing just that for quite some time. The notion that Google will just waltz in and take significant market share from Microsoft is naive at best.
Posted by Alan Sanders at July 9th, 2009 at 10:03 ami no more want google as my os than i do mcdonalds…
i’m tired of google owning the web…why do i want them to own my desktop also?
besides, google’s chrome is a mess, i tried it and quickly uninstalled it
remember how google docs was supposed to dethrone microsoft office?
never happened.
look at the other google failures:
orkut (myspace and facebook trounced it)
google video (they had to buy youtube instead)
google checkout (paypal is the leader by longshot)
etc.
do some homework before writing these hype pieces
show how many successes google has had in each of its efforts
Posted by Sam Harrison at July 9th, 2009 at 1:15 pmI think any new OS also has to be optimized and work closely with gaming companies. Linux flounders with gamers since most apps tend to run slower or not at all.
Also… has anyone ever had a problem with gmail? Google support is terrible. They will need to hire people for support rather than build an AI that sends autoreplies filled with jibberish. I hope Google can pull this off, but would hate to have a shiny new OS with no support.
Posted by patrick mullins at July 10th, 2009 at 7:42 amPatrick: It’s true that Google’s support for millions of anonymous and non-paying Gmail users is less than spectacular. But then that is true of Hotmail, AOL, Facebook, all the ofther free Internet services, and even most of the PAID Internet services.
Heck, when last I worked for a company that used Exchange I couldn’t get a straight answer out of the support people there either.
When e-mail is down, all you need is a status page that tells you when it will be back up again.
Other than that, Gmail has probably been more reliable than any other e-mail system I’ve used, public, private, free, or paid.
Yesterday’s coverage of the “new” OS was overhyped. Today, reality sets in. Besides, it’s not even released yet. I’m not sure it even counts as a “shot across the bow” yet. More like an old British cargo ship noticing an island with a disproportionate number of people wearing eye-patches at this point.
Arrrr.
Posted by Mac Beach at July 10th, 2009 at 9:05 pm