Should Microsoft Fear Google Chrome OS? – The ‘no’ argument
Yesterday, Everton wrote here about whether he thought Microsoft should fear Google Chrome OS. He said…
I think they are, because in order to keep the costs of budget devices down hardware manufacturers want low OS costs and we can see this in the number of devices already shipping with Linux, and this is why Microsoft created Windows 7 Starter edition to try and keep these manufacturers within the Windows fold and to counter this threat.
To counter this argument, there’s the train of thought that Microsoft should not fear Google’s foray in the operating system market.
Okay, so there are compelling reasons to switch to Chrome OS. Google have a strong product line-up now including a browser, online office suite and even push email. You also have to consider that as this OS is aimed at netbooks, you have limited functionality. These machines are designed for light web browsing, writing the odd document and email. But in practice people will always want to do more with their PCs.
How many people are ever satisfied with such light use? I personally have never met anyone who at least didn’t want to do photo editing or playing music.
Chrome os is based on Suse Linux. This is a build of Linux that has already failed on netbooks, with people wanting machines installed with Windows.
Read more: windows7news.com
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“Chrome os is based on Suse Linux. This is a build of Linux that has already failed on netbooks, with people wanting machines installed with Windows.”
This is probably wrong. There has been a leaked version of the google Chrome OS browser on the web, and it’s a debian install package, which means google chrome is probably base on debian, therefore not SuSe (the only reason I see why you say it’s SuSe, it’s because of the Chrome OS beta that has been circulating, created with OpenSuse Studio … that beta is not related with google’s Chrome OS).
Another thing: you mention limited functionality. I think it wont really be that way, we can probably expect most linux programs will work, and for those who need to use some windows program, they have wine, which, although it doesn’t always works, it works pretty well.
The real advantage this OS will bring, will be lightweight performance, therefore ideal for netbooks. Anyway, to know if it’ll be worthy of Microsoft’s concern, we’ll have to wait.