Business 2.0 has an interesting thought on Google’s greater ambitions: building a “Google OS”. I’d have to agree (in fact I already have) but there’s a missing component, and a lesson to be learned from the last company out to turn Microsoft irrelevant.
Netscape, and its new resurrection knows that a key point in making the operating system irrelevant is to neutralize the its differences. These days Mozilla goes to great pains to synchronize features on Windows, Mac and Linux Firefox and Thunderbird builds - effectively extinguishing the differences and advantages of these operating systems. This is also something we’ve talked about before.
Google isn’t to that point yet. With gaping holes in platform compatibility e.g. Desktop Search, Picasa, Earth and now Talk, Google is effectively reinforcing its rival. With no materialization of the GBrowser, we can only speculate and wait to see how seriously Google will take platform compatibility.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
August 29th, 2005 at 1:18 am
[...] m today’s Blogroll dive: Michael Heilemann presents an “Ode to Summer”. Brian finds a missing link in the “Google OS” theory. Khaled is hu [...]