Can Google Learn from Microsofts Mistakes?
Google’s indication (hardly an announcement) that they’re getting into the OS business comes as no surprise. It’s already got Android. It’s got Web-based apps that are now (finally) out of beta. It’s got the right vision, IMHO, for mobility. They have the potential at the very least to put a thumbtack on Microsoft’s chair, if not actually kick them in the butt. And that’s because MS thinks that an operating system is a destination rather than simply a facility to abstract hardware and network services into metaphors that programmers and end-users alike can deal with. The two key directions for mobility — netbooks (or at least lighter clients, which includes handhelds) and Web services — really don’t require MS’s vision of bloated, complex, buggy, slow, inefficient, unreliable, and expensive operating systems. Because they’ve been competing in the PC, rather than the Web-centric, era, Microsoft has only two options to address this opportunity — Windows Mobile, which I still think is
