Google vs Microsoft: Search Engine War May Have Deeper Implications
By now you are probably aware of the colossal corporate mega-battle between search engine giants Google and Microsoft (Bing!). What you may not be aware of is how this could effect your life in the years to come.
Raaaawwwrr!
Microsoft has been the top gun of operating system providers for some time (occasionally losing market share to Macintosh), but generally Mac users stick to Macs, Microsoft users to Microsoft and there was balance in the world of OS providers. Somewhere along the line, someone at Microsoft fell asleep at the wheel and Google went relatively unnoticed as they expanded beyond the world of Search Engines and moved into the development of other applications.
With the release of Google Chrome, an internet browser/operating system for netbooks, Google is sending a clear message to Microsoft – “This is war!”.
Google stated in their blog that “Google Chrome OS is an open source, lightweight operating system that will initially be targeted at netbooks. Later this year we will open-source its code, and netbooks running Google Chrome OS will be available for consumers in the second half of 2010. (…) Google Chrome OS will run on both x86 as well as ARM chips and we are working with multiple OEMs to bring a number of netbooks to market next year. The software architecture is simple — Google Chrome running within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel.”
Although Chrome hardly hit the ground running, it still puts Google ahead of the game in next generation Operating Systems – If Crhome catches on, it could change the way we use computers and the internet forever. Luckily for Microsoft, Chrome will need much fine tuning before that happens.