After numerous articles posted on The Register and other news sites about Google’s new conquests and releases, I am now wondering where all this Google growth is leading. As everybody, who is even remotely interested in the Internet and computers in general knows, Google has evolved from being a great search engine to providing toolbars, sidebars and maps. Not only that but Google also offers GMail, which has the most usable and practical interface I have ever used, GoogleTalk and Picasa. Although the most profitable asset of Google is Google Ads which deliver ads to web pages in relation to the web page’s contents.
But now Google is winning biddings from Microsoft in pre-installing their software in pc’s sold by Dell and HP. AOL is another Google real-estate after Google paid over $1bn to aquire 5% of AOL. Another daring move from Google is the GooglePC and Goobuntu linux distribution. Google and Ubuntu teamed up and are creating a free OS which will have Google’s software installed. The new OS is most probably going to be used on Google’s GooglePC’s as a free alternative to Microsoft Windows. This will enable Google to sell very cheap entry level pc’s aimed at the people who primarily use pc’s for emails and the internet.
This is a direct move against Microsoft which has already lost a lot of ground on their MSN franchises. With Wal-Mart selling the new GooglePC and Goobuntu it will certainly harm MS Windows sales at entry level pc’s. All this sounds great, and as a user of almost every software from Google I feel a warmth to see that an open source company can harm the software giant called Microsoft. I think that eventually there is going to be an even battle between these two giants of the IT industry. Google certainly looks that will continue to grow every passing day trying to catch up with Microsoft which has been around for ages and has established a strong position as the leading OS manufacturer. Neither Apple or Linux has managed to shake Microsoft from it’s position and they have been trying for a lot of years. Now there is another… and the force is strong with this one!