By Susan J. CampbellTMCnet Contributing Editor
Google has got to be a bad word in the Microsoft (News – Alert) realm. Not only has the search giant maintained its leading position on the Internet – giving up little market share to Microsoft’s Bing – Google (News – Alert) has now also announced plans to release its own operating system.
According to a recent Yahoo! News report Google is planning to release its Chrome operating system this autumn. A further blow to Microsoft – Chrome will be free.
“We are working on bringing the device later this fall,” said Google vice president of product management Sundar Pichai at CompuTex Taipei, Asia’s biggest IT trade show, as quoted by Yahoo! News. “It’s something which we are very excited by … We expect it to reach millions of users on day one.”
An open source operating system, Chrome is based on the Chrome browser, which is designed to work exclusively with Web applications. Google estimates that more than 70 million people use the Chrome browser.
Industry analysts are not yet sure whether or not Google will be able to threaten Microsoft in this space. They highlight that hardware manufacturers may or may-not launch Chrome-based products.
This speculation is truly only born in the fact that Chrome is not yet available. A swift adoption of the operating system and manufacturers will quickly jump on board. While it isn’t always enough to simply have the name “Google” on the product, a free alternative to Windows that can perform as well or better is likely to be a formidable competitor.
The rate of adoption may be more of a consideration. It is difficult to migrate to a different operating system, especially for those who have been used to Windows for years. If it works as well – and is as user friendly – as other Google applications, however, Microsoft may want to consider a new long-term strategy.
In other Google news, the company is being sued by a woman after she used its mapping service. It seems the woman walked along a high speed State Route in Utah: “where vehicles travel at a high rate of speed and
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