Google Guns For Microsoft With Netbook OS

Executives from the world's largest tech and media companies are meeting this week in Sun Valley, Idaho for an annual conference. Thanks to search giant Google, they'll have plenty to talk about.

As reported by InternetNews.com:

Google Inc is planning a direct attack on Microsoft Corp's core business by taking on the software giant's globally dominant Windows operating system for personal computers.

Google, which already offers a suite of e-mail, Web and other software products that compete with Microsoft, said on Tuesday it would launch a new operating system that will initially be targeted at netbooks.

Called the Google Chrome Operating System, the new software will be in netbooks for consumers in the second half of 2010, Google said in a blog post, adding that it was working with multiple manufacturers.

I don't recall any company with Google's size and resources ever challenging Microsoft on its own turf -- operating systems. Yes, we're just talking about netbooks now, but if consumer response is positive you can safely assume more powerful operating systems for large PCs will follow.

As to what constitutes positive response, obviously that's for Google to determine. But with more than 90 percent of the world's PCs now running on Windows and most PC consumers fairly averse to change, Google's expectations need to be realistic. Indeed, if the tepid response to Google Chrome -- which has only 1.2 percent of the browser market since being launched late last year -- is any indication, Google's not going to be the OS market leader anytime soon.

Still, Google has a couple of big advantages it can leverage: 1) A strong, positive brand, and 2) an immense promotional vehicle in its search engine, whose home page is the most popular site on the Internet. With the stakes higher in the battle for operating systems than they are in the fight over browser supremacy, I expect Google to put a lot of muscle behind the Chrome OS. And if I were Microsoft, I'd take this threat seriously.