After spending between $100 and $300 on various versions of Vista, some people are going back to XP. For Microsoft, this is a very bad sign. But for Google, this is practically an invitation to enter the OS market.
Google . . . Build Us An OS!
In recent years, Microsoft has thrived by being the default choice – its products were satisfactory, so the average user didn’t go looking for anything else.
Aside from those users who have uninstalled Vista, though, a number of people have refused to give it a chance in the first place; sales have been slow, and PC manufacturers actually asked that XP be kept available.
So if Microsoft’s latest operating system isn’t up to snuff, that leaves the door (or window) wide open for a competitor. Google, with its 120-item list of products and $206 billion market cap, is in a good position to put something together.
And by doing things such as giving away StarOffice 8, the company’s already undercut Microsoft in a number of ways.
When might we expect a cost-effective, courtesy-of-Google operating system, then? Not soon.
Since Eric Schmidt has long said that Google’s Office-like products are not intended to challenge Microsoft’s offerings, creating a rival to Windows would be a big departure from that corporate message.
Still, with such a huge market at stake . . . hopefully Google will come around and change its mind.
