Google and Microsoft Invade Each Other’s Wheelhouse

by Carlos Portocarrero, WeSeed Writer

Google (GOOG) is coming after Microsoft (MSFT), and they’re not being shy about it. Next year, Google is going to launch an operating system based on Chrome, their brand-spanking new web browser.

Google claims Chrome OS will start up in less time, and take up fewer resources, than anything else on the market. Translated: Google has got Microsoft Windows in their sights and they’re about to pull the trigger.

For its part, Microsoft isn’t just sitting around. Earlier this year, the massive company launched Bing, their new search engine. Google’s search had been the 900-pound gorilla in the search world and crushed its competition (remember Altavista? Ask Jeeves?), but a recent New York Times article suggests Microsoft’s new Bing has some skills of its own.

This means both companies are going after the other’s jugular: Windows is Microsoft’s cash cow, and search is where Google makes its green.

At first glance, a new operating system that claims to be faster and better than Windows could be all hype. But if you attach Google’s name to it, it becomes a pretty big deal. Besides, we’ve already seen what Google can do—their Chrome browser is noticeably faster (at least for this Google user) and less taxing on a computer’s resources than Internet Explorer or even Firefox.

That’s why I installed Chrome on my new Netbook—it runs a lot smoother than the other browsers out there. Google claims Chrome OS, which is based on the Chrome browser, will practically turn your OS into an Internet browser that runs your computer.

This is all part of Google’s overarching plan: their other applications (Gmail, Google Docs, etc.) are all meant to run in “the cloud”—which means they run off the web and not off your machine. Google is also going to give the new OS away for free—all they want is for more people to see the search ads they service.

Google fanboys—and there are many of them—shouldn’t get too carried away, though. This is still Microsoft we’re talking about. They’ve overcome countless accusations of doing shady stuff in the PC industry, and they’re still making huge bucks.

But all told, this is pretty fun to watch. If Bing was Microsoft’s uppercut at Google, then Chrome OS is a haymaker aimed straight at Bill Gates’s jaw. Can he bob and weave away from it, or will it be a knockout blow?