Google v Microsoft: Clash of the Titans

THE announcement came as a humble blog post on Google’s corporate website late on Tuesday July 7th, but it delivers what is likely to be a dramatic shake-up for the information-technology (IT) industry. By promising to release, at some point later this year, an operating system for personal computers the online giant is launching a direct attack on Microsoft, the world’s biggest software firm.

The confrontation is likely to be momentous. Microsoft’s PC operating system, Windows, boasts a market share of nearly 90%. Although the firm’s empire has been showing signs of decline, it remains a dominant power. Yet industry watchers see a huge threat as the mighty internet company moves into new territory. TechCrunch, a leading technology blog, made it clear how vulnerable it believes Microsoft to be, reporting the news as “Google Drops A Nuclear Bomb On Microsoft”.

In reality it will be more of a slow explosion. At first Google’s Chrome OS, as the new software is called, will be targeted only at netbooks, the cheap and smallish laptops that are proving popular. The idea is to provide a compact operating system with a simple user interface that boots up in a few seconds and allows users to work securely and easily with web-based applications, such as e-mail and social networks. This is why the software is based on a stripped-down version of Linux, the popular open-source operating system, and comes with Chrome, the browser that Google released late last year.

And it will take a while for the program to be ready for prime time….