Op-Ed Contributor - Chrome vs. Bing vs. You and Me - NYTimes.com
Cringley gets it right in describing the strategic positioning between Microsoft and Google. Nevertheless, I think new products and services from both companies do benefit the consumer. The techie fringe may be all atwitter about Google's 'FUD' announcement about a Chrome OS in 2010, but most users have little concern and enterprises will not jump to it without some significant benefit. The Google brand will not be sufficient to persuade big companies to switch.
3 comments:
As a related yet semi-random note, in the personal networking space, it dawned on me that Twitter offers mostly a simplified version of Facebook (the horrendously complicated and difficult-to-use social networking site). In both applications, your main feature is the ability to connect with others and to share personal updates, but Twitter simplifies it to bare essentials only. In the business space, maybe those who can take a complicated suite (Google) and simplify it, can enter the space very rapidly, as Twitter entered a space that's similar to Facebook(?). So, maybe the future will be de-suited, where we use a collection of apps that focus on doing one thing each, all tied together by some type of Internet glue. Sorry, somewhat random thoughts... but maybe the real battle isn't between MS and Google, or others, but between 'suites' and 'the best available' individual apps.
"....take a complicated suite (Google) and simplify it"
or take a part of the suite....
"So, maybe the future will be de-suited, where we use a collection of apps that focus on doing one thing each, all tied together by some type of Internet glue. Sorry, somewhat random thoughts... but maybe the real battle isn't between MS and Google, or others, but between 'suites' and 'the best available' individual apps."
I think that's what Google is hoping...playing to our individuality. MS is playing to the herd instinct, i.e., commonality, familiarity, consistency to satisfy bureaucracies and big orgs.
Free thinkers tend to like the best, if disparate, apps...the newest thing. How to glue them all together may be what Google Wave is all about.
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