Walter Watts
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Google OS: The Scenario
« on: 2007-10-24 21:16:59 » |
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Google OS: The Scenario
10.22.07
Microsoft's getting into the advertising business instead of fixing its operating system issues, so why shouldn't Google put its billions to use developing a free, better OS?
by John C. Dvorak
Microsoft has been in the news a lot lately, and there are two distinct themes to the coverage. The first is the generally negative press about Vista—that people are complaining about it, and that many are reverting to XP. In this kind of situation, you'd think a corporate effort would be made to fix any and all flaws.
But instead, we hear a lot of denial while Microsoft pushes its new agenda: advertising. And I'm not talking about buying advertising, like any normal company in the software business does, but about selling ads—as Google does.
Engineers' syndrome. The only difference is that Microsoft, once a software company, keeps entering businesses in which it has little or no expertise. Microsoft may be suffering from engineers' syndrome, something you run into all the time. This is quite amusing, even to engineers, who see it occurring in other engineers but never see it in themselves.
The idea is that once you learn engineering disciplines, you project them onto endeavors other than engineering, since everything you ever do in life is actually some sort of engineering. While there is some modicum of truth to this notion, it's the leap of faith that pushes the idea into the absurd. What happens with engineers' syndrome is this: You start believing that since you're an excellent engineer in one specialty, then you're a friggin' genius in everything you do, because it's all the same, really.
This becomes most obvious—and ludicrous—when engineers decide that they can develop, design, and orchestrate an advertising campaign. Hey, it's a form of engineering, no? If you work with some of the big agencies in and around Silicon Valley, you'll hear great stories about what a nightmare working with engineering companies can be, because of the meddling of engineers.
Microsoft afflicted. Microsoft seems to suffer from this syndrome a lot more than Google does. Microsoft sees that Google is making a pot-load of money selling ads from search results and via other mechanisms. How hard can that be? So Ballmer is out tub-thumping for the notion that Microsoft will eventually generate half its income from selling ads. Is he nuts? That's like General Motors deciding that it doesn't want to buy ads to sell its cars—it will sell ads on its cars instead. Put an ad on a Cadillac! That's just dopey—and particularly dopey for Microsoft, since Microsoft is a software company, not Vogue magazine.
For Microsoft, this is a potentially disastrous scenario: The company takes its eye off the operating system ball and goes into the flaky ad-sales business, buying up various companies and lording it over them since Microsoft engineers are the ones who know better. This is a formula for disaster.
Google pulls a Microsoft. Meanwhile, Google runs into a team of coders who have developed some sort of hybrid Linux-Windows-VM-BSD mashup OS. The results are interesting, and kind of work. A lot of people do not know that at any given time, numerous workable operating systems are being developed, many with great potential. None of them can get traction, though. If they rise above the common-noise level, they get crushed by Microsoft rather quickly. But none have worked freely under the umbrella of a troublemaker corporate entity such as Google, either. What we are witnessing is the potential for a unique switcheroo.
Microsoft pulls a Netscape. You'll recall that in the mid-to-late-1990s Netscape was making noise about moving into Microsoft territory, and Microsoft had to get into the browser business to beat Netscape back and crush it. Well, this time, Microsoft is the one making the saber-rattling noises by going into the Google business. Seems as if Microsoft is the joker here, much as Netscape was back then.
How about this for an idea: the Google OS—a Vista/XP-compatible OS that's fully functional, has billions of dollars in development behind it (eventually), and is free!
Sound like a familiar ploy? Give away the product to destroy the cash cow of the other company. That's exactly what Microsoft is asking to have happen if it attacks Google, a company with which it should not even be in competition.
Instead of going into the advertising business because Google is in the advertising business, perhaps Microsoft should go back and nurture its cash cows. Cripes. What are they thinking!?!
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