Ask the Boss: Eric Schmidt, chairman and chief executive of Google
Q: Will Google ever grow to rival Microsoft in the operating systems market? — Ameer Ali, London — Ali, — Well, we haven't even built Chrome OS yet - so let's wait and see! The reason Chrome is so important …
Context & Ripple Effects
Schmidt has been running a steady press circuit through 2009 — the Financial Times in May, Business Week and TechCrunch interviews in August, and a Search Engine Land piece this September where he named Chrome his favorite Google product. This Times of London reader Q&A lands in that same stretch, with Schmidt declining to measure Chrome OS against Windows before the software exists at all.
The rivalry framing goes back further than this year: the New York Times flagged Google gearing up for a direct clash with Microsoft back in December 2007, and Chrome OS turns that clash from search-and-apps into operating systems proper. The market data around the interview sharpens the stakes — Net Applications figures show Chrome gaining browser share in September while Internet Explorer loses ground, and Vista ceding desktop share to a surging Windows 7 just before its retail launch.
First-order effects
- Microsoft now faces a confirmed Google entry into operating systems, even if Schmidt concedes nothing is shipped — the competitive threat arrives as Windows 7 launches against a Vista install base that is already bleeding share.
- Chrome's September browser-share gain gives Google a distribution channel for Chrome OS that Internet Explorer never offered Microsoft: the OS candidate can be seeded through the browser itself.
Second-order effects
- Microsoft's response options narrow to defending the browser layer first — every point of IE share lost to Chrome weakens the on-ramp through which a Google OS would reach users, making browser retention a proxy war for the desktop.
- PC makers gain a second OS bidder alongside Windows, giving hardware partners negotiating leverage on licensing terms that they have lacked throughout the Wintel era.
Third-order effects
- If Chrome OS matures, the definition of an operating system shifts toward the browser as the primary platform, collapsing the OS-browser distinction that has structured Microsoft's dominance since the 1990s.
- A credible free alternative OS pressures the paid-license model of the PC software business, pushing the industry toward services- and advertising-funded system software as the default structure.
The trend: Google is climbing Microsoft's stack one layer at a time — search, then apps, then browser, and now the operating system itself — with the browser serving as both the wedge and the delivery mechanism.