ChromeOS a win for Microsoft?

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ChromeOS a win for Microsoft?

Ever since Google announced plans for ChromeOS there have been predictions that it would be a Windows-killer. In truth Microsoft might be quite pleased about this opportunity.
 
Well of course ChromeOS won't be able to be Windows 7 yet. But google is an expanding company known for its quality and/or effectiveness. Take a look at Chrome browser (not for its addons as mozilla but still an excellent browser), or Google Earth or for those into technical drawing/CAD Google Sketchup. Give Google time, maybe 3 - 5 years.
 
Halogen said:
Well of course ChromeOS won't be able to be Windows 7 yet. But google is an expanding company known for its quality and/or effectiveness. Take a look at Chrome browser (not for its addons as mozilla but still an excellent browser), or Google Earth or for those into technical drawing/CAD Google Sketchup. Give Google time, maybe 3 - 5 years.
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Google Earth and Wiki caused them to shut down Encarta World atlas and encyclopedia.
 
As long as the corporate world is tied to Windows and Microsoft Office those who need to interact with this corporate world can go nowhere else but Microsoft. It's a standard. One is faced by many frustrations if one decided to go outside of the standard ... just not worth it. Fact is Microsoft has got the corporate world by the balls, and there's nothing much that can be done about it in reality.
 
Adie said:
It cannot really "damage" Linux. Linux is supposed to help those of us who are unable to upgrade our Windows licenses, to download international updates for our Windows OS, or to simply buy it in the first place. By taking "market" share away from Linux no-one is really hurt, especially not Linux, as they did not gain from people who use it in the first place.
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It would damage Linux, because users of traditional Linux distros would switch over, making them lose market share. Right now the critical barrier to mainstream adoption of Linux is availability of software.

I know A LOT of people who would immediately jump ship to Linux if their favourite games ran natively on Linux. This further hurts market share.

And Linux lacking market share is bad for currently Linux users too, because without it the lack of support from hardware manufacturers continues. (This might be a moot point, Kubuntu manages to support most of my hardware from the word go. But I still need to load Win XP in virtualbox to print.)
 
Why people think microsoft will ever be nailed by a another OS? There are just to many people who rely on windows for gaming and work for windows to ever be beaten.

Wiehan the sad reality these days is that very few new games run on linux without some major effort.

Without directx linux will never challenge microsoft in the gaming sector.
 
all I know is it is a Win for me ... the consumer .... and that's all I care about! :p
 
Not really gary, we need an OS that can compete against microsoft, we need a complete OS like windows that can do games, apps and everything because dual booting is bloody annoying.
 
With my limited knowledge of "how things work" I believe it is one thing to develop a netbook OS and entirely another to develop a main stream OS. MS has got a massive head start on everybody else, warts and all. The uptake of netbooks, IMHO, will not in the foreseeable future be near that of "conventional" type computers.

They will sit back and watch Google play (and pay) catchup for some time to come.
 
inferno said:
Why linux though? Why not start with something fresh?
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Time and money.

Industry analysis values the linux kernel at about US$1.4 billion, a complete linux distribution at about US$11 billion when taking into account lines of code and developer cost.

ChromeOS cannot harm linux as it is linux. ChromeOS will be released under the GNU license which means any code google generates will be plowed back into linux upstream.

There are no losers here.

Google also has industry pull which means we might just start seeing games and some other useful apps on linux.

People don't seem to realise that there are already way more linux devices out there than windows devices, hard to believe but true.
 
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I find these articles sometimes to be incredibly biased against Linux. Its quite a pitty.
 
It can't damage Linux, Linux is a kernel, Google will contribute to it and better it, Linux will be the kernel that everyone would want to run for being stable, open and free because it's a collaboration of the best.

look at android phones, that is linux, palm pre? linux, tomboy GPS? Linux etc, etc.
 
No new OS is going to dethrone MS on technology alone, even if it is the best technology. The biggest obstacle to any entity that wants to compete in the desktop market is that of societies inertia to change. I can just imagine some one getting this new netbook and saying "Ok, where is my excel and word and outlook and solitair". Unfortunately, in my opinion that is just the way it is.
 
reaplayer was everywhere, it died out when better alternatives arrived, the same can happen with MS, nothing is impossible.
 
Aqua_lung said:
reaplayer was everywhere, it died out when better alternatives arrived, the same can happen with MS, nothing is impossible.
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Yeah, I don't miss RealPlayer, and I certainly won't miss MS if they die out. It will actually be a good then when that happens.

B
 
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