Yesterday, search giant Google announced the often-rumored, commonly expected Chrome Operating System and the Internet lost its shit.  Tech writers everywhere fell over each other in the haste to write Microsoft’s obituary, certain that Google’s announcement was the beginning of the end.  Some went so far as to call the move a “nuclear bomb” on Microsoft, whose disastrous release of Windows Vista makes them particularly vulnerable to a game-changing competitor.

Photo: Arti Sandhu

For a product announcement every blogger on this Lord’s Internet say they saw coming in the first sentence, the reaction to Chrome OS seems pretty sensational.  With all this hype, the next year until Chrome’s release is sure to be full of speculation on the Redmond monopoly’s shaky future.  Is Microsoft in serious trouble over Google’s entry to their bread-and-butter space?

Let’s not carve the epitaph yet.  Here are four reasons to remain restrained over the implications of Google’s entry into the OS space.

1) Organization

Google still hasn’t marked a market leader outside of search.  Its products in email, photo, social networking, real-time, and location are persistent also-rans.  It bought the number one spot in maps and video and the latter is under threat of strong competition from a set of very competent upstarts (e.g. Hulu). The OS space is going to take strong retail and channel sales savvy, two elements completely outside the institutional competency Google currently has.  A year is a good while to build up the right team, but they’re principal competition has been doing it for the past quarter century.

It’s clear Google is a shop that ships good software; it is not clear if it is an organization that can sell good software.

2) Third Party Support

As anyone who owns a Mac or runs Linux know, the switch off of Windows has some unexpected pain.  It’s always the little things.  Driver support for half the video cards on the market is still shite for Linux.  Flash runs like a overdosed three-legged retard dog on anything other than Windows.  Small devices like microphones, PDAs, MP3 players and video cameras are always a compatibility crap shoot with Mac and Linux.

But they always work on Windows.  Getting cash-strapped OEMs to provide drivers, peripherals, and popular plugins has been a long standing nightmare for all of Microsoft’s competitors.  You can be the same for Google and after the unimpressive third-party showing for Android development, it could seriously hinder Chrome OS.

3) Games

Microsoft’s Xbox 360 gives them an even greater legup on an already dominant position in PC gaming.  Game developers and publishers can cheaply port their console titles to the PC to pick up an extra 30-40% in sales, something the Linux-based Chrome OS just won’t be able to offer.

Microsoft’s years of investment in the development and promotion of DirectX along with the success of the Xbox console platform has made gaming an impossibly entrenched position for Redmond.  The best Google can hope for from gamers is a dual-boot, which is not a win.

4) Wrong Entry

Google’s biggest problem is that they are going after the wrong target.  By choosing netbooks as its avenue of entry, it is assuring its exclusion from the business.  A fast, low-weight OS with comprehensive web compatibility could be a real enterprise play, perfect for long-machine-life, high-volume accounting, sales, data entry, and QA departments.

The enterprise is Microsoft’s real Achille’s heel, not the family room.  By targeting such a still infant marketspace in netbooks, Google may gain dominance in an early adopter segment at the expense of winning the real fight.

The workplace desktop is Windows’ real stronghold which Google ignores at its own peril.

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