Google's OS Model Borders on the Brilliant

Google’s (GOOG) been accused of many things but having slight ambitions isn’t one of them.From the company’s stated mission, to its search efforts, from book search to Android, the company always aims high. Google’s latest plans stick with the formula.

Following an increasingly popular trend of pre-announcing potentially big news, the company announced Tuesday on the Google blog that their Chrome web browser will have a new cousin in 2010: Chrome the Operating System.

Unabashedly sighting in on Microsoft (MSFT) and its next generation Windows incarnation, Google says people want to get their email in an instant, and they want computers to run as fast when they’re a year old as when they were first bought. They want more for less. More accessibility, more speed and less maintenance. Google thinks it can deliver that. “Computers need to get better,” Google says. “Speed, simplicity and security are the key aspects of Google Chrome OS.”

The platform, which is separate from Google’s Android mobile operating system project, will initially target netbooks and users who spend the majority of their time on the web. It will run on x86 and ARM systems. Its windowing system, which is built on top of a Linux kernel, will emphasize web based applications and “cloud” services. Like Android, Chrome OS will be an open-source environment that hopes to harness the power of crowds to advance and improve itself.

In many ways, the strategy seems as simple as the aspiration is grand. It’s a vision of a world pre-configured to run Google services, open to all but optimized to give the groups in mountain view a headstart. With a Google OS you wouldn’t need to surf to YouTube or Gmail. Maps needn’t be a choice between Google, Yahoo or Mapquest. With Chrome OS, Google can put its own services (and ad offerings) front and center; opt out instead of opt in. (click the graphic on right to enlarge)

With different operating systems (Android for Mobile and Chrome for Desktops/Tablets), Google is positioned to leverage a broad and integrated advertising platform for all points of contact to internet services.

From an incentive standpoint it might be a conceptual model that borders on brilliant. By giving value without asking for direct payment, Google gives corporate partners incentive to use the services. By increasing feature sets and availability, they stoke consumer demand. By making the platform open to developers who can work without paying license fees (which lowers costs for consumers too), Google harnesses the power of the crowd. And for Google, the more people that embrace the platform, the better Google’s position for capturing advertising revenue.

It almost doesn’t matter if Google finds large scale consumer adoption. So long as there is some uptake, with a browser, search dominance, a mobile platform, a desktop service, even white label video delivery tools, the company is everywhere. They become an almost unavoidable waypoint to all things internet (see graphic).

Few companies have the depth of resources and cash to take on a big loss leader or chase such a big dream (which is exactly what these kinds of large scale development projects are). Google has the tools. Using them effectively might make it a non-exclusive gatekeeper to services we can’t live without and an advertising venue spanning the entire digital globe.

You almost have to wonder if Microsoft and Yahoo (YHOO) executives didn’t just add another "uh oh" to their back office concerns.

Google’s small ambitions? Anything but.

(Now all they have to do is build something that lives up to the hype.)

Comments

[David914:]

And then when your internet does down you don't have crap...

Jul 09 10:13 AM

[Rick Urban:]

It almost seems that you have absolutely no clue what operating system is and what it does. Here is a nice quote from another article: "Google just bolted a big ol’ bag of drivers (also known as the Linux kernel) to Chrome browser and are calling it the Google Chrome Operating System."
Anything what Google has done on the technology front so far is not very good. All they have is a search engine, which is not the best anymore. Google is an advertising company, not a technology company. Microsoft has technology, Google does not. After sinking billions of dollars in to "research projects" what did they produce?
Google docs, Sketch-up, Android, G-phone, green car...? All unusable for any serious work. Oh I forgot, they bought You Tube.

Jul 09 10:30 AM

[LA Tech:]

RICK URBAN cuts to the chase. Google is still a one trick pony and don't generate any measurable revenue or profits from any source outside of paid search.

Ad agency is the perfect business model for Google.

Jul 09 10:48 AM

[PaulN:]

Guys you have to remember that this is all a Media game. Google is good at using their 'adolescent and brash image' (which is hardly the case if you knew how ruthless they are on the inside) to wow the media. This is all just a back-and-forth tit-for-tat with Microsoft because Microsoft just threw a major salvo at Google with their Bing service, which is arguably a better experience on many fronts. Google pre-announcing something 18 months before it's due? That is actually not that common for them. So why would they do it?

They are just trying to throw FUD around Windows 7. They're actually running scared right now -- they see 2 major innovations coming out of Microsoft and they know they're under the gun. While they have the 'adolescent' cachet, they're using it to hurl rocks at their rival. And their playbook is getting so tired: 'we are open, we are using linux, we are using open source, we can do it better' ... as the other bloggers state, none of that has materialized into anything formidable yet.

My suggestion is for both companies to stick to their knitting. Google is an advertising company. Microsoft is a technology company. Why either one is so keen to enter the other's space is beyond me, other than to burn $Bs and untold mega tons of carbon to just replicate what the other has done. It's pretty sad, actually, if you back up and look at these two companies from a cosmic and universal level. Such is capitalism, though, they're going to fight for the last dollar at any cost.

We'll eventually forget about this paper announcement like almost everything else google does, especially as Microsoft captures more search market share.

Jul 09 11:05 AM

[Windsun33:]

While Google is spending so much time on things like the OS, it is losing market share in the search engine market as more and more people complain about the large number of poor results and advertising spam sites.

Jul 09 11:06 AM

[Rick Urban:]

PaulN,
Excellent commentary, right on the money!

Jul 09 11:14 AM

[Rokjok777:]

The operating system market is hard, VERY hard. The next Windows release will be tested against 28,000 device drivers. A bank in Paraguay wants it to work out of the box on their Olivetti printers from the 1980's. That's just one small example of what a modern OS needs to do, there are many, many others. GOOG can win some share, sure, in stripped down devices. Over time, yes things will move into the cloud. But any time spent in actual computing environments, especially in the enterprise (which is a huge part of OS markets, let alone where servers get bought) and you'd know that GOOG's offer has years and billions to go before it's any kind of real threat. Enterprise IT managers have checklists with hundreds of boxes and GOOG can say yes to about 6 of them.

Jul 09 05:43 PM

[Rokjok777:]

Here's some real, non-fanboy commentary about this issue:

blogs.zdnet.com/Howlet...

Jul 09 06:19 PM

[bospino:]

Saying that Google is and advertising company is missing the point of your analysis. Sure they make most of their profits from their search advertising model, but none of their success would be possible without their technology. They are young and disperse, and so is the internet and all the little apps we use to make our lives more comfortable and entertaining. I want my computers to last at least 2 years keeping the same performance, I hate searching using pirate software, but I don’t want to invest a dime on it if I know that the next OS from Microfts is going to wipe it away. If Google can promise me that, I can change my barin to stop using outlook, power point and excel.


On Jul 09 11:05 AM PaulN wrote:

> Guys you have to remember that this is all a Media game. Google is
> good at using their 'adolescent and brash image' (which is hardly
> the case if you knew how ruthless they are on the inside) to wow
> the media. This is all just a back-and-forth tit-for-tat with Microsoft
> because Microsoft just threw a major salvo at Google with their Bing
> service, which is arguably a better experience on many fronts. Google
> pre-announcing something 18 months before it's due? That is actually
> not that common for them. So why would they do it?
>
> They are just trying to throw FUD around Windows 7. They're actually
> running scared right now -- they see 2 major innovations coming out
> of Microsoft and they know they're under the gun. While they have
> the 'adolescent' cachet, they're using it to hurl rocks at their
> rival. And their playbook is getting so tired: 'we are open, we are
> using linux, we are using open source, we can do it better' ... as
> the other bloggers state, none of that has materialized into anything
> formidable yet.
>
> My suggestion is for both companies to stick to their knitting. Google
> is an advertising company. Microsoft is a technology company. Why
> either one is so keen to enter the other's space is beyond me, other
> than to burn $Bs and untold mega tons of carbon to just replicate
> what the other has done. It's pretty sad, actually, if you back up
> and look at these two companies from a cosmic and universal level.
> Such is capitalism, though, they're going to fight for the last dollar
> at any cost.
>
> We'll eventually forget about this paper announcement like almost
> everything else google does, especially as Microsoft captures more
> search market share.

Jul 10 04:50 PM

[Liqal:]

Netbooks loaded with (GOOG) Chrome will boot up almost instantaneously & will store data on the 'net instead of a hard drive.

There's you Uh Oh from MSFT

Jul 11 07:02 AM