OP: Is There a Difference Between Google & MSFT?

[Wayoffbase]

[citation][nom]fulle[/nom]People are going to hate this analogy, but I see Microsoft as this...Microsoft is that old guy in your office, who's been around forever. He's not the best, mind you, not even close, but he keeps anyone from entering his niche areas through ruthless office politics. Nobody likes this guy, he's out of new ideas, and barely gets the job done... but, we keep him because there is no other alternative, since nobody can replace him without someone, magically, figuring out all the very specific niche things he knows.Like the old bastard, Microsoft has its claws sinked in and isn't going anywhere. We can loath them, love them, its really irrelevant, and thats what bothers me. They have such a monopoly on the OS and Office software markets, that competition with them isn't really competing, its more like fighting over kitchen scraps.Google... well, Google feels different. They're getting huge, but they're not a Microsoft yet, and at least they have some new ideas left. They dominate the internet add space, in a near monolithic fashion, but slight competition from Yahoo and Microsoft keeps this from making me lose sleep. But, Google's definitely worrying me with their data mining practices, which are even worse than Microsoft's.Both companies, to me at least, are a testimate to how damaging the US patent system is, and excellent examples on how a company can leverage patents to become a monopoly power in different markets.So... my TLDR version: Fuck them both, but I hate Microsoft more.[/citation]
Microsoft is responsible for putting computers into nearly every household in the developed world, and is still expanding into the rest. Someone else could have done it, plenty of other companies tried and failed, but MS did. People who hate MS for being profitable are the ones that don't remember that we didn't always have computers, that they are not a god-given right.

 

[Hellcatm]

Ok I see it this way. Here are the other companies that people hate (and yes people love). Besides Microsoft there is Sony, and Apple. What they have in common is they all charge a huge amount of money for what they do. Microsoft charges a lot for its OS and Office. Sony charges a lot for its PS3 and Blu-ray and Apple charges a lot for its computers, and iphone.

Also Microsoft works on trial and error a lot. They made OS' that were good and some that were really bad. They bring out Office every year and some of them don't have enough added abilities to buy the new version. Sony brought out blu-ray before it was ready to win the war with HD-DVD and they're PS3 is more expensive than the other consoles and doesn't have as many good games. Apple brought out the iphone with key features that were missing and it took them 3 years to put in simple cut and paste and video. Now with all 3 of these companies you pay for every new OS, or version of a mildly better gadget because it has a new feature you want.

Googles products are almost always free. Like was said if something goes wrong no big deal you didn't pay for it. There is no real loss going with a Google product.

Microsoft is a company that has to make their OS work for billions of people. Apple OSX and Linux only have a hand full of that. Plus Windows has to worry about backwards compatibility. If they don't do it they may loose market share to another OS. Backwards compatibility is what keeps Windows #1. People hate Microsoft because they are #1 and they have to stick with them. No one else has come up with a good enough OS that will make businesses and home users alike want to dump Windows. Because Microsoft has to worry about backwards compatibility they take longer to bring out Windows and there are more glitches than some of the other OS' out there because they have to worry about the end user. Apple could make a brand new OS next year and people wouldn't care, if Microsoft made an OS that wasn't backwards compatible people would be pissed....unless its something thats drastically different than any OS out there.

Google is simple, their products have to do with the web. Its not likely they'll make a stand alone OS...not soon anyway. Google Chrome OS will still be a browser that runs on another OS and runs web tools. Google isn't going to make a game console, or a Office suite that will compete with Office (Google docs is a simple version of Word that doesn't have the power of word, same with spreadsheet). I'm not saying what Google is doing is small in any way, but at the moment Microsoft doesn't have major competition from them in the OS market. Their main competition from them is Search, mail and browser. Microsoft might want those markets as well but as long as they have the 95% of the OS market they should be happy. Google is still known as the little guy even though they're not very little any more. Microsoft is known as the 2 ton elephant in the building. Microsoft is seen as trying to beat everyone and be #1 in everything computers and Google doesn't seem to be trying, they just bring stuff out and people like it. Microsoft has big fan fair for every product they bring out. With google you just hear about them in articles, blogs, podcasts and such...no 100 million dollar ad champagnes. Google is quiet compared to Microsofts big roar.

This is what I think the difference is between Google and Microsoft.

 

[matt87_50]

well thats easy. nothing, except the things google do are generally more useful and make you go, "wow, thats pretty cool".

it's easy to say that google stuff is free where as M$ stuff isn't, but thats not entirely true, when MS brings something out to compete with google, its generally free too. I don't think that either one is more "evil" than the other, I think they are both pretty cool, but i think microsoft (unserprisingly as they are older) are a bit more behind the times than google.

 

[croc]

Jane, you should know that it is 'bated breath...

As to Google offering a 'free' OS, fine by me. I only have to support three PC's at home. But wait! On my day job, I have to support several thousand users, as well as several dozen servers running at least six different apps. Can I call google when my 'free' OS has an issue? And what is their response time likely to be? Let's say they 'blob' out to databases... Can I call them right now and get a human on the job to investigate my DB issue? Oracle will answer my call usually in 20 sec., and will have a resolution in usually under 20 minutes. We pay big bickies for that privelege, but that is the cost of doing business.

 

[randomizer]

Google control far too much information as is. I see no reason for them to control everything going to and from my PC. On the other hand, being an open source OS, any Big Brother-type code will be found within days of inclusion. It's when anything closed-source from Google gets added that you have to re-evaluate the situation.

 

[eddieroolz]

I myself am a Microsoft fan more than a Google fan, so right off the bat I'll admit that I'll have some bias. Just bear with me for this post.

Firstly, I don't like Google. I used the search engine when Live Search sucked, because there was no alternative. But as soon as Bing came online, I hopped straight to it. Why? Because I don't want to give Google my business when it mismanages my personal information. My friend found a search he did in Grade 7 on Google by tracing his account. He's a university first year right now, same with me. Microsoft may have its flaws, huge flaws, but I don't like a company that doesn't care about privacy. What's more, I never thought of Google as the friendly corporation that so many think it to be. I always thought it had a sinister, ulterior motive.

Now, Microsoft is not entirely free of faults, either. Live Search sucked, especially for images, and Bing is still inferior in many aspects to Google. But at least they have tried in the search engine market. However, I do agree with Jane that perhaps they're trying too hard to compete in every single market. It's like the iPhone; it may do everything nicely, but it's not outstanding in any of them. Google has an advantage there that it excels in the search engine market. Simply, it's focused.

Now though, I still perceive Microsoft to be a great corporation. I personally would like to work for them one day as a programmer. Sure, we may have to pay $200 for an OS, but at least that will admit you to the wide wide world of Windows hardware and software with unlimited number of things to choose from. Furthermore, Microsoft will still regularly update an OS nearly 10 years after its manufacturing (XP) unlike Mac OS X, which even the Tiger (2 years old?) is now put on limited support, soon to be phased out.

On a side note: I would actually appreciate less competition in the OS market. Reason? This creates less confusion among customers and hardware vendors. We have three major OSes and we are already at a point where manufacturers cannot or do not support all three simultaneously; imagine if there were 10 OSes just like automakers. Unless 7 out of the 10 share a common code base, it would be nightmare to make the hardware work for all the platforms.

Now, it is possible so that the programmers code the OS in a way that it works with the hardware. But then that would be stifling development as the developers can never move on from the supported hardware, and hardware companies will have no incentive to develop them further because "hey, if it works, why break it" mentality. Plus it's always good to have Windows push the frontier of digital computing with demanding applications.

Sorry, it got a bit too long.

 

[xioncharter]

I can't wait for Ads on my OS! Nothing is free.

 

[tester24]

Well personally I prefer Microsoft as my main client operating system mainly because I'm very familiar and I always liked the interface, however for software development or a free OS I go with Linux, (Which essentially that's what Google is going to use just with a different user environment). If Google wants to take on the netbook market go for it, anything to make cheaper internet machines I think everyone is for it.

As for Google going into the full mainstream OS's (other than netbooks or internet machines) I don't see that happening for a bit.

 

[Avenger762]

The guy is right about Microsoft products costing lots of greenbacks and crapping out on a regular basis. When my email goes out, it doesn't bother me cause I have another addy. Both of them are free. I have multiple OSes on multiple types of PC and the only ones messing up that bothers me is the one running WinXP that cost me an arm and a leg when I bought it.

 

[inmytaxi]

The difference is that Google products allow you to customize; Microsoft tell you what to do and make it difficult to make significant changes.

 

[cheese2122]

Google is leaps and bounds better than microsoft for one reason;

they do things just because they SHOULD be done.

to explain. Google is indexing every single book in the world, and creating a massive online library, why because it should be done. the made google maps, why because it should be done, do they charge the consumer for it? no. that train of thought can be applied to almost everything google. I don't mind giving money to google for its services, i really don't, MS on the other hand, I wouldn't give a dime to.

 

[badaxe2]

When Google can offer a free desktop OS that runs as many apps and as well as XP or the upcoming W7 then I'd say it's something to definitely take notice about. A lot of people need more than a netbook. Btw, can a netbook run Crysis?

 

[neiroatopelcc]

I think google's a bit like spectre - only the secret service knows its a threat, and the rest of the world lives in wonderful ignorance. I want to hate google for being everywhere .... but then I move my eyes to the corner of the screen to see I'm using a google product to post with .... can't hate something that works this well. But then I don't hate microsoft either. They've done a few things they probably shouldn't, but so've I and everybody I know.
There's really only one company in this business I really hate, and it's the rotten apple. I dislike xfxforce for their humiliating lack of customer support, and I dislike sony for turning a 1 month old electronic gizmo obsolete by releasing a new version ; but I don't hate anyone except apple. The company that uses chinese goverment strategies to get its will.

 

[Guest]

The reason behind the success of the Windows is "applications and games", that is why everyone use it today. But this will change in the following decade because of the .NET framework.

Chrome OS and Mac OS can easily steal market share from Microsoft if they include full support of .NET framework applications. Since most of the software designed for Windows will be .NET based in the next 5 years (including Office, Games etc.), users will be able to switch between different operating systems as they like, as long as the operating system has full support of .NET framework.

For my opinion Linux has no future for home and office use, except servers (it is still easy to set up and maintain a Linux server).

 

[Guest]

We've accepted that GOOG is the new Borg for a few years now. And anyone who feels their products to be "free" is delusional - just read their TOS and we see they extract their chunk of flesh in a different, arguably more strategic way than MSFT does. I encourage adaptation of their upcoming O/S. One gets the sense GOOG will partner with AMD / ATI to provide the hardware on which the O/S will run, first, on ASUS and MSI systems in the mobile and desktop replacement space. The drivers and so forth will come from ASUS and MSI as usual. It's anyone's guess which OEM's GOOG will partner with for pre-installs of the O/S on desktop's but one gets the sense that HP and DELL won't receive first consideration. GOOG already has a close partnership with APPL and, with this O/S, one takes the guess that it'll be GOOG's Webkit-based answer to OS X. We like OS X but its distribution has been so limited by APPL's forcing the market to buy overpriced and frequently sub-standard hardware - this Chrome is GOOG's response to the demand for an OS X sort of O/S on your own choice of far less expensive and probably higher quality hardware. I look forward to it. It'll certainly destabilize the world market and this is a good thing for technology and the consumer. Just like Windows, we can expect it'll be highly invasive if it ships for free or for cheap like OS X. On the bright side, you won't have the Windows Registry, ActiveX and so forth to worry about. anymore.

 

[Vermil]

I'm very happy to see so many enlighted and conscious comments here.
To embrace Google is to be a fool.
I believe that MS treats their customers very well, and always have. In my experience I have been able to depend on them much, much better than anyone else.
Now, I don't know how much Google cares about their customers, but it's sort of irrelevant, because YOU'RE NOT GOOGLE'S CUSTOMERS!