Google to challenge Microsoft with new OS

[Mugsy]

When Apple moved to the Intel platform for its Macs, I thought for SURE they'd finally release a version of the MacOS... an already tested and established OS with huge support base... that would run on any Intel based PC.

I have no clue why they never did. Software is MUCH cheaper to develop & sell than hardware with a MUCH higher profit margin.

Various flavors of Linux have been around for years, and I keep a partition with Ubuntu on it for those rare times disaster strikes my Windows setup. But as good as Ubuntu is, it just doesn't match the ease of use of Windows (still using XP with no intention of moving anytime soon.)

 

[Vrmithrax]

Mugsy said:
When Apple moved to the Intel platform for its Macs, I thought for SURE they'd finally release a version of the MacOS... an already tested and established OS with huge support base... that would run on any Intel based PC.

I have no clue why they never did. Software is MUCH cheaper to develop & sell than hardware with a MUCH higher profit margin.

There's several reasons why this never happened. The primary reason is that Apple likes its elite niche, and is a hardware OEM first and foremost. The OS and software products they develop are basically intended to make the users of their proprietary hardware happy, and maybe sell more hardware. If they drop an OS on the general computing public, there is no push to sell their hardware if it works fine on a standard PC, and it just massively increases their support structure that has to be in place - remember, they control the hardware on their stuff, but the PC market is a wild hodge-podge of infinitely variable hardware combinations, making support exponentially more difficult in many cases.

Apple has figured out its niche, its roll in the market, and is happy with it. They are the cool crowd, with strong stable hardware products and the occasional "wow" factor, and they make plenty of money doing waht they do. To try to throw their hat into the ring directly against Windows would just defeat their strategy.

 

[SNGX1275]

Google's OS will never be a gaming OS, at least not for many many years. Look how hard it is to get game developers to release games on linux or OS X and those are pretty established (albeit small) markets. Google's OS won't get more adoption than linux and OS X.