Why Google is Killing Microsoft [Response]

I recently read BusinessInsiders article, “The Ten Reasons Google is Killing Microsoft”, and I agree with what’s stated, however I offer my own thoughts on this subject.

1. The Rule of Defaults

The first reason I suggest is the ‘rule of default’–I’ve found that consumers don’t tend to tinker with settings or customizing their PCs more than a new wallpaper, screen saver, or populating it with files and software.  This is why Windows XP Service Pack 2 was a big deal; it was the first version of Windows to have a firewall enabled by default.
It’s also true that 95% of all copies of Windows are sold on new computers, meaning that only a small percentage of people upgrade their computer to a newer version of an operating system. Currently a Microsoft operating system is included by default on most PCs, however in the future when a Google OS is available and deemed suitable (because of our dependence on web applications,) PC makers will include it by default.

2. Ease of Management

In living as a geek in a non-technical world I have found that most people have a fairly low comprehension of what the computer is actually doing.  In recent years we’ve seen the advent of web applications which have succeeded for many reasons, but let’s take what I consider to be the most important: you don’t need to balance your computing ecosystem.  Computers are like wet lands or marshes, they have many entities that live and work inside them which all have to behave in a manor to ensure the best working conditions for all of them.  Web applications by design don’t inhabit the same space as other web applications and so don’t tend to bug each other and mess with shared files, frameworks, or functions.
Windows is a steaming pile of code which had it’s purpose ten years ago, when we didn’t have high-functioning web browsers and high-speed internet, but now people are hoping for a computer where they don’t have to use an anti-virus solution, they don’t have to manage hard disk space, and they don’t have to think about backing up.

3. Ease of Location

In an Apple Keynote Steve Jobs said that it’s easier to find a page on the internet [with Google] than it is to find a file on your local computer.  This of course was to explain the need for a system-wide search service for Mac OS X, but it seems that this problems haunts all operating systems.  Microsoft and Google both have their own entry into this system search utility market, but the problem isn’t the software it’s self, it’s the user.  Users are notorious for not saving their files correctly: they can mistakenly press ‘save’ when they close, they can not press ‘save’ frequently when the program crashes, and most distressingly, not save it in a good place.
I don’t intend to be so hard on computer users, it’s just so common that people mess up, and it’s not their fault.  The fault is in how file systems work, how computers are designed for a more technical audience, and how you almost need an engineering degree and years of study to get it right. If Google can do to local machines what they did for the internet, they will win.

4. Where the Money Comes From

Money is always a problem, especially where it comes from.  Microsoft makes most of it’s profit from software sales.  There’s a problem with that, though.  Let’s say you’re in the IT department at a large enterprise with more than three hundred employees.  You are tasked with upgrading the computer systems, would you rather:

• the new software to be completely compatible with what’s already there and add a few new features to it or
• be a completely new, modern system that isn’t 100% compatible and will take a few weeks to fully implement and months to retrain the users of it.

I think that’s an obvious choice, the first one, compatibility, and the problem with that is Microsoft frequently makes that same decision.  Microsoft first did well with IBM because they were a radically new and different system than anyone had ever seen before, and now they’re making the same mistake that killed IBM; being evolutionary, not revolutionary.

Google is in a completely different situation.  Google has a constant cash flow that is almost independent from the other endeavors they get into.  Google is free to innovate and revolutionize how we think about computing, which will eventually become another source of income by means of advertising.  That’s another thing, Google is an advertising company, arguably one of the most successful ever because they know how to get viewership and users.  Google seems to be trying to offer businesses what Microsoft is, except that Google takes care of most of the back-end work.

5. What We Really Use

But as a final thought, because teens seem to be the most up-to-date group, let’s examine the products that teens use most: cell phones, browsers, search, and documents.

• Google and Microsoft both make cell phones, but these are too advanced to be “cell phones”, they’re really “smartphones” which brings up the iPhone and Blackberry.  The Blackberry owns the business market for smartphones and Apple has a majority share in the non-business smartphone users, but really, teens don’t have smartphones, they have regular cell phones, the kind that you can get on a pre-paid service, or that costs no more than $40/month for an avid user; Google and Microsoft have failed that market.
• Google and Microsoft both make browsers.  Google Chrome has about 2% of browser usage and Microsoft’s Internet Explorer has about 66% (worldwide, statistics from article).  The problem is that teens don’t like IE or Chrome; they like Firefox.  Whether it’s Firefox’s extensions, tabs, stability, speed, or themes is debatable, however it seems likely that it’s the ‘rule of default’.
• Out of my experience with teens and generally a younger group, I found that teens use the search box in the upper-right corner of the screen in whatever browser that are using, however if it’s (mis-)configured to another search engine, they see the results aren’t what they’re looking for, and immediately go to Google (often by using that search box to find ‘Google’).  This could be just the difference of appearance of these search result pages from Google’s.  Or this habit could be learned by trying to find what they’re looking for using another search engine and getting poor(er) results or from the social stigma surrounding Google.  So Google clearly wins here.
• The last thing that teens tend to do is presentations, word processing, and page layout, this could be more a side-thought, though.  In the productivity world there seems to be a few choices; Microsoft Office, Google Documents, Corel Word Perfect, OpenOffice, and iWork.  Of these it seems that Microsoft Office is the preferred format, OpenOffice a distant second, and all of the remaining suites have about an equal share of users.

It may seem hard to imagine a world without Microsoft, however I can see it.  I can see Google taking over with an open-source, strong operating system that gives us what we need in this time.  The only remaining in my mind is whether this transition to Google is for better or worse.  Whether trusting all of out personal information to others.  Maybe I’m wrong… what do you think?