GooglePC with GoogleOS

I've been saying for a couple of years that Google would do an office suite, operating system, and co-branded PC. Eric Schmidt told me to my face at CES last year that they would never do an Office Suite--which of course they did.

He also told me they would never do a OS or a PC. Well, Dell is bundling Google apps with their PCs now (as you can see below), and I predict that in 2007 Google will release an Operating System and a super discount PC. Think, a $300-400 PC all-in-on unit that is sold at cost in order to make money off of their services.

Think about being Dell or Gateway and being offered a) a free OS and b) 1-5% of the revenue from Adsense on the computer? How can you turn that down when it's going to be double or triple your margin on a PC?!

The next upgrade cycle for Office is dead in the water thanks to the Google Office suite.

The Google OS will come out in 2007, and in 2008/2009 the Windows upgrade cycle will be ankled.

Go Go Google!!!

Tags: google office, google os, google pc, GoogleOffice, GoogleOs, GooglePc

Dec 20th 2006 11:15AM
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1. But will it be a real OS? How many applications are moving over to the server side

My predictions is Google gets a mobile before it gets an OS, Schmidt has been denying that for a year but recently stated it'd be a good idea, but of course denied Google is planning to launch a mobile.

Whatever the OS, I think it'll be a lot simpler than the current Linux-powereed rumours. Something along the lines of Firefox-on-chip. Remove the option for an address bar and make everyone either use Google's homepage for bookmarks or run searches for sites they want to visit (I do this, I can't remember the last time I actually type a URL).

Google is in a great position to become the mobile device. I've got no need for an actual PC, a simple browser interface would suit most users.

But the key isn't to become a hardware manufacturer, just build the chip and give it to the OEMs (Sony/Dell/Bono/etc) whoever can design the best interface and market it to the user. Goodbye to the majority of R&D costs, Google will do it for you, all you've got to do is design the casing and get them into your customer's hands.

Posted at 12:37PM on Dec 20th 2006 by Adam Cains

2. IBM (Lenovo) is doing this also. I just bought a T60 for a coworker this week and it had Google bundled in as well.

Posted at 1:27PM on Dec 20th 2006 by Troy Richardson

3. By operating system do you mean an operating system? That's insane. Perhaps a limited feature computer that can only boot up a browser and have a decent set of device drivers. My mom would be satistified with that. But that's not an operating system. They might use their limited feature box as a trial balloon, and later decide to flesh it out. But operating systems, with supporting apps, are not that easy to do, even for Google.

Posted at 6:22PM on Dec 20th 2006 by stephen

4. Is it just me, or does this remind everyone else of all the Netscape hype about 10 years ago? Funny how everyone STILL wants to kill Microsoft. Of course the difference here is that Google makes money, but still -- they haven't exactly proven that they can succeed in launching profitable products outside of search.

Posted at 7:18PM on Dec 20th 2006 by Jordan Mitchell

5. Why bother with an actual OS when all they really need to do is convince a major PC vendor to:

*make Firefox the default browser
*install Google Toolbar
*make Gmail the default mail app
*make Google Calendar the default calendar app
*make Google Reader the default RSS reader
*make Google docs and spreadsheets the defaults for .doc and .xls
*install Google Pack and set the apps as defaults

Get Dell, Sony, or Gateway to drink Mountain View's Kool-Aid, rather than Redmond's.

Posted at 10:28PM on Dec 20th 2006 by skip

6. I do think that Google is going to do something about the OS market, but I doubt they would make their own OS. Mostly because it would probably be some sort of Linux distro, and we've seen how popular those are with consumers. Now, they might be able to get away with it if the "OS" is really just there to run the browser - enabling users to access the online Google services. Anymore, thats what we do anyway.

Posted at 11:29PM on Dec 20th 2006 by Dave

7. That sound pretty optimistically, but I think they will not release an OS so soon, because there's no way to be compared between a webOS and some Mac/PC OS in the things, being used by every tenth user, like some programs that use a lot of computer's resources and/or have many features, which you can't cut off these apps, and it will be hard to port these apps into the web with a least the same usability and user-friendly interface.

Also there are not so much browsers, wich are able to support 100% of standarts and features of even existing technologies, such as CSS2.1, XHTML1.1 and so on...

Posted at 12:01AM on Dec 21st 2006 by Shimon

8. "1-5% of the revenue from Adsense on the computer?"

You are probably right, but this would mean that data would have to be transmitted to Google in order for Dell (IBM, et al) to get their cut of ad revenues. I don't think this will go over to well with consumers.

Posted at 11:14AM on Dec 21st 2006 by Michael Doan

9. Just a couple of points.

1. Google is paying real money to Dell etc. to bundle those apps, on the tune of billions of dollars. So the PC manufacturers are already getting money from Google, which limits their incentive to take on an OS. This opens the qquestion of how exactly Google will provide tech support to those Dell users since I think it's impossible to get Google suport now, but that's another topic. :)
2. As one of the other comments noted, an operating system does a lot more than support a browser -- stripped functionality machines have not done too well historically. People tend to want *more* functions, not less.
3. The either/or argument about Office is a red herring. Sure, this might be true if there were no changes in either the way people worked individually or in groups, and no change in the way we communicate. It also assumes that Microsoft (my client, full disclosure) won't do anything new. Look at what Ray Ozzie has said about the move to a blended world for his thinking.
4. Finally, while it's always easier to argue for an either/or model (either all on the web OR all on the computer) the truth is that that we don't usually live in a binary on/off world.

fxs

Posted at 10:46PM on Dec 22nd 2006 by Frank Shaw

10. Two thoughts:
1) I agree that Google is heading towards their own OS, but i don't think it won't be a real OS in the traditional sense. Google has been focusing on rolling web AJAX apps/services. They don't need their own OS to support that. True, it wouldn't be much for them to rebrand a linux distro, but why would they need to? It's much more likely that they will either continue cozying up to Firefox, or simply borrow the Gecko and create their own browser, integrate it with their services (which badly need integration), and brand it as a new kind of OS. I just can't see the need for them to roll out a traditional OS.

2) MS Office does not have to worry about being replaced by Google's web apps any time soon. Web apps are fine for simple documents, but they can't replace Office in a workplace setting. Mail merges, ODBC integration, complex Excel apps, charting and reporting, precise formatting--these are all some examples of things that web apps are not yet able to handle well. And the perpetual beta is too buggy, too unstable, too unreliable and too everchanging to be used and supported by organizations and institutions. I don't think a web app can compete with a desktop in the workplace (yet).

Posted at 12:09PM on Dec 29th 2006 by Barberboy

11. Hello. It seems to me a very interesting article follow thus.

Posted at 1:43PM on Dec 31st 2006 by Tenue

12. They will release Goobuntu in 2007 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goobuntu - it's being dogfooded internally right now.

Posted at 7:15AM on Jan 2nd 2007 by Angelic

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