OP: Is There a Difference Between Google & MSFT?

[Emusnacks]

The biggest difference between Microsoft and Google is that the latter does not charge me an arm and a leg for products that should be free to begin with.

 

[cyberkuberiah]

the google is all around you : even in this very room . and the rabbit hole goes deeper than you'd imagine !

 

[Cache]

The key difference is that with Google as my OS, even when I'm not online I'll still get pop-up ads for male enhancement.

(The above was a joke for the 3-4 people who are incapable of understanding gentle sarcasm.)

 

[steiner666]

competition is good. this google OS will be great for ppl who dont like playing games and/or run significantly low power systems... so i'll probably never use it

 

[zodiacfml]

can't compare them though vast companies often have failures, such is Sony.
to me, MS tries to please everybody including of course their pockets.
Google to me is not big and controlling as MS.
all they can do now is urge people spend and enjoy more time online which they did quite successfully in my case now that i spend more time browsing using their basic yet fast Chrome browser.

 

[IzzyCraft]

[citation][nom]dravis12[/nom]#1 difference:You don't pay for Google's software. (yet)People like free stuff.[/citation]
You forget part 2

Google holds a ton of your information on-line a lot more intrusive then people generally like.

Remember nothing if free form google it's all there to get ads so they track what you do where you do it etc.

 

[Parrdacc]

Google = Big Brother

Microsoft = Money hungry Brother

Apple = cool looking, bling, spoiled little Brother

 

[nachowarrior]

There are several really great things about open source operating systems and software. I've noticed that going between windows and linux, there's almost always a way to make something work or solve a problem relatively quickly with linux. Whereas with Micro$haft, if it's broken or it's not supported then it generally just won't work until/if they decide to support it with their minimal software team. (minimal compared to a huge open source community).

Having said that, there are so many people who don't realize that they really don't have to pay for windows, because they don't do one big thing with their pc... play loads of games. Other than that almost everything is supported in linux. Either via native support or via a virtual machine eg:wine. Even at that you can get a lot of games to run in linux. The simple monopoly comes into play when micro$haft pays game devs/publishers to support windows only.

That brings me to one of the point of the article; Why Google is different than Micro$haft? Google isn't paying off or suing the crap out of everyone that stands in their way to tooth and nail it's way to the top. Google is WORKING it's way to the top through innovation and products people actually want to use.

One more final poke in the ribs to Micro$haft. Cost effectiveness. After the initial cost or learning curve rather of using open source software, the upkeep is rather minimal. Not to mention backwards compatibility concerning hardware and software is more long lived on open source platforms. I can't tell you how many times over the years i've dug up an old game or file of some sort that's made to be proprietary to windows and it won't work, on a windows operating system. Now i'm sure you're thinking there are ways around that... eg:dosbox... but wait. dosbox isn't a solution provided by micro$haft, so the argument is circular leading back to the point that open source software and operating systems are better in the long run for everyone. Google just happens to bringing an offering to the table and will likely do so with flying colors and it should have a nice polished and minimalist feel.

In conclusion, there's always going to be a massively dominant OS no matter who made it or owns it or doesn't own it due to the nature of the business. The more platforms you have to develop for, the more difficult and costly your software is to develop. In a perfect world the underlying tech beneath all os' would be an industry standard rather than tech owned by one company thus varying the offers, diversifying the market and driving innovation.

 

[nachowarrior]

i apologize for the grammatical errors, i didn't proof read.

 

[hixbot]

meh, Crome is just a GUI with a linux backbone. Google claims that it's open source, like its their choice. It's open source because they are using prewritten code protected by the GNU license. In order to use GNU code, they must keep it open. If google can provide a decent API for game developers, i might think about Crome.

 

[Guest]

1) As stated on Anandtech, the Chrome OS will be a stripped down Linux that only runs Chrome. All functionality will come through web apps. This is the thinnest of thin clients, and the point is that it will get you to use Google Apps for all of your needs.

2) It will probably be hackable to support hardware that works with more robust Linux builds. If it doesn't work in Linux, or you want to do something with it that doesn't involve the web browser, your hardware won't be doing much. This is fine, since the OS is aimed at netbooks.

 

[cubbage]

IMHO I do not trust either one, BUT with MSFT you can secure your computer so that your data is more protected then it is with Google. Free in never cheap, there is always a cost for every FREE product/service in the world. I would much rather pay for my products that gives me the control of my data. Google is already violating your privacy if you use their products, they seem more like big brother to me, once they have all the data they can take control. Good luck trying to get your data off of their servers, notice I said their servers, not your server. It is more realistic to believe in Santa Claus then the belief that Google's products are free and they will not snoop/look at your data stored on their computers. Personal computer has no meaning with google, might as well call it Google computer because they own your ass.

 

[gcolefla]

Hopefully Google can make an OS for netbooks that sips battery power, I feel if I had Chrome, open source office software and 4 hours of battery life on a 4 cell battery, netbooks would be perfect. Right now from what I have been reading, a 4 cell battery will get you 2-3 hours

 

[Dekasav]

Here's the only thing that would likely stop me from using a Google/Chrome OS: DirectX.

 

[HermDawg]

Yes I am excited about Google's Chrome OS. It's a great idea, and I think Google will put the resources in to make it a great product. That being said I think Chrome OS will have it's place, but it won't be able to totally replace Windows at least in the near future. Chrome OS looks like it will basically be a dumb terminal to all of the web applications out there starting with Google's products. It will be lightweight and do the web fast and efficient, but it won't have all of the abilities of Windows (until the software is written for it). And it most likely won't be able to support all the different types of add-ons and peripherals already connected to computers now.

As to Google's and Microsoft's approaches to being everything and everywhere for everyone there is a huge different between the two. Microsoft is doing it from inside your computer out and Google is doing it from outside of your computer in. Personally I think Google's approach is the more modern and if Microsoft doesn't adapt quick enough they will be hurt really bad by Google and all of it's services.

 

[aft_lizard01]

[citation][nom]dravis12[/nom]#1 difference:You don't pay for Google's software. (yet)People like free stuff.[/citation]

Yet Windows remains the dominant browser,os and office suite.

 

[cruiseoveride]

The difference?
Microsoft = Evil
Google = Eviler

 

[aft_lizard01]

[citation][nom]Dekasav[/nom]Here's the only thing that would likely stop me from using a Google/Chrome OS: DirectX.[/citation]

Mine is that I am not always near a internet connection. What good is an OS based on web productivity when you can't always be near an internet connection?

 

[sailfish]

By its own admission, Chrome OS is primarily targeted at online users. To compare such a

 

[powerbaselx]

Chrome OS seems a NetOS which means local support will be reduced probably to a filesystem. And probably with no compatibility with Windows (for games mainly) besides a dual-boot system.

 

[sailfish]

By its own admission, Chrome OS is primarily targeted at online users. To compare such a limited set of functionality to that of a real operating system is like comparing a non-iPhone smartphone OS to Chrome OS. It will be a very long time before people will give up their real computers for, essentially, a smart terminal. If anything, it poses more of a competitive threat to Apple-iPhone than to Microsoft.

btw, I agree with batkerson on breaking up micros~1 into two entities (OS and apps); although, they could have done it like they did with IBM where they were split into two divisions where the app devs had no more access to the internal OS APIs than what was also allowed to competitors. Last I looked, IBM has been doing just fine.

 

[chaohsiangchen]

It is business sector that Google and M$ are battling for. For home use, M$ still dominates, and there's not much difference from using Ubuntu on nettops. Intel certainly don't like what Google is doing, as they prefer end users to upgrade computers rather than downgrade OS to fit new cloud computing model.

We now know that linux failed at defeating M$ at nettop market due to consumer regarding netbooks as cheap, light weight notebooks replacement rather than mere internet device.

Google doesn't offer business user for free, and I doubt that business operators who have a lot of confidential data will move from M$. I found that only us the enthusiasts hate M$ pricing model and activation, and we are the small market. In the end, M$ will win and push Google to the side, just like they did to IBM, Lotus, Borland, Wordperfect/Corel, and many other of their competitors of the past. Remember that Google is the survivor of the dot.com bubble, but M$ is the top predator since the beginning of IBM PC.

For end users who don't feel like to pay M$, there are already OpenOffice for Win32, OSX and any linux distribution, and Google Chrome stuck on Tom's Hardware site to me twice yesterday.

 

[kutark]

This OS will be, in a market sense, a failure. It will, just like all the various flavors of linux, fail to grab anything resembling a significant portion of the userbase... Why? for the same reason linux isn't more popular. Companies aren't going to write programs to work in these OS's when they can write for MS OS and have a vastly larger group to market/sell to. So, what we will see is what we've seen, the vast majority of the programs for this OS will be open source, user written programs. Some of these will be fantastic, a lot of them will be terrible. Overall, I don't really see this as news, except for those mouth breathers who feel that just because something is new or different that it is automatically better.

 

[xyz001]

Google is different from microsoft in the way that everything they have made is smart, well-designed, inovative and therefore is liked by people.

Microsoft have ONLY made anoying, badly designed, bloated, un-tasty products that not only lacks any kind of insight in user-experience, but also simply lacks style and soul.

It is a mystery why they have lasted so long in the business, and hopefully this will be the beginning of the end.

The problem with microsoft is that they just have no taste. They have absolutely no taste.

 

[greenskye]

consider the tin foil made. Both companies charge me more than i want to pay. Microsoft charges money and google charges information. I'd prefer to pay the money for now (though I'll wait to see what Chrome looks like)