Google disses Microsoft

[AlecWest]

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/12818048.htm

...or... if that site asks you to register:

Google says we don't need Windows

By Mike Langberg, Mercury News

Google boss Eric Schmidt worked at Sun Microsystems for 14 years, so it's no surprise he shares a vision for the future of computers and networks with Sun boss Scott McNealy.

And it's no surprise that future doesn't include a place for Microsoft.

Google is so hot right now that Schmidt doesn't have to say much of anything to make waves. He just has to show up, which is what he did Tuesday in taking the stage at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View to announce some modest agreements with Sun.

Schmidt presented McNealy with the gift of a lava lamp, for reasons not fully explained.

McNealy, famous for his caustic wit, opened the news conference by sarcastically telling a crowd of about 100 eager journalists, photographers and TV crews: ``I know you'd be here even if Google wasn't.''

The small amount of actual news veered deep into geekiness, with talk of Google supporting Sun's Java Runtime Environment and buying more of Sun's hardware.

Schmidt and McNealy only hinted at the real importance behind their public display of affection, which is expanding the Web to a point where online applications eventually eliminate the need for conventional personal computers.

Instead, we would only need ``thin clients'' -- low-cost, relatively unintelligent boxes that only connect us to the Internet, where we'll do everything from reading e-mail to creating spreadsheets to editing photos.

Those conventional PCs, of course, mostly run on Microsoft Windows, and one of the most popular applications is Microsoft Office. If thin is ever in, Microsoft will find itself about as welcome as Ben and Jerry visiting a Weight Watchers convention.

``This is the first step on the Interstate that leads Sun and Google to go after Microsoft,'' said Stephen E. Arnold, a technology analyst in Harrod's Creek, Ky., whose just written a book titled ``The Google Legacy: How Google's Internet Search Is Transforming Application Software.''

Putting aside the question of how a company less than nine years old can have a legacy, Arnold contends Google has figured out ways to make huge networks of computers work together far more efficiently than competitors. This global supercomputer is mostly used today for creating lightening-fast responses to search requests, but could be harnessed for many other tasks.

The most obvious example so far is Gmail, the free Web-based e-mail service Google introduced in March 2004. Gmail initially offered a huge 1 gigabyte of storage space, since increased to 2 gigabytes, forcing everyone else in the category to respond.

Santa Clara-based Sun, meanwhile, is trying to challenge the extremely lucrative Microsoft Office by supporting a free software project called OpenOffice, and by selling a spiffed-up version of OpenOffice called StarOffice.

But Sun doesn't have the clout to transform OpenOffice or StarOffice into a household name, not since Sun's core business of selling Internet hardware tanked in the dot-com fiasco.

``We, a long time ago, were pretty hot,'' McNealy said Tuesday. ``Then the bubble burst.''

Mountain View-based Google, on the other hand, is Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie and Jennifer Aniston all rolled together as far as Silicon Valley is concerned. We can't get enough of Google's every move.

So the photographers went wild Tuesday when Schmidt briefly held a StarOffice 8 box in his hands Tuesday, looking nervous.

Reporters repeatedly asked if Google would now turn OpenOffice or StarOffice into a free Web service. Schmidt ducked the questions, giving an inscrutable comment about how ``boundaries become less obvious'' in the increasingly networked world.

If you believe McNealy, Microsoft's approach of putting a lot of software on PCs is ``a remnant . . . that's so last millennium.''

Maybe, but McNealy has been dissing Microsoft for years -- even as Microsoft chewed up Sun's business and left the company on the verge of extinction.

Google, meanwhile, has yet to show it can beat the competition in any category other than Internet search; Gmail, for example, is arguably inferior to the newest version of Yahoo Mail.

Of course, half the fun in celebrity watching is waiting for the rich and famous to get in a cat fight. The battle of Sun-Google vs. Microsoft is now moving into full swing. Whoever comes out on top, it's sure to be a great show.

[lordsmurf]

I cringe every time I see people using "diss" as if it were a real word. Next thing you know (ala Futurama), "aks" will be the official word used for the act of questioning.

The word originated as a short-hand of "disrespect" which was used wrongly to being with (the "thug" culture clearly has no understanding of the dictionary definition of "respect"). So using "diss" is really a double-stupid.

But I assume this is something you copied from the article, so no malice aimed in your direction personally.

[AlecWest]

But I assume this is something you copied from the article, so no malice aimed in your direction personally.

Nope, I use the word all the time. It's meaning is universally understood and I see nothing wrong in using it.

[lordsmurf]

I can see Google making an attempt at some sort of SciFi-ish "online OS" in the future. It would make some degree of sense from a techie perspective. It might even aid in simplifying the Internet for those still not using it.

[Faustus]

I like how they mention how better the "new" yahoo mail is then gmail. I have a yahoo account and see very little difference and I still get about a bajillion spams a day on it.

[lordsmurf]

I like how they mention how better the "new" yahoo mail is then gmail. I have a yahoo account and see very little difference and I still get about a bajillion spams a day on it.

There's a new yahoo?

Seriously....?

I've had an account with them since 1996, and I don't see much different now than I did 5 years ago.

[anitract]

I agree that most slang is stupid. Language is always evolving though - just try and stop it.

[MackemX]

I don't think LS was 'dissing' AW :P. Diss returns 5,650,000 results by the way in Google

it would be great to see another company take over MS as the #1 operating system

[Faustus]

it would be great to see another company take over MS as the #1 operating system

CONTRIBUTE TO THE CAUSE!
store.apple.com

[anitract]

Or, alternatively (and in the opposite extreme as Apple), build your own PC and install one of the many popular (free) *nix distros for total freedom.

[Faustus]

Or, alternatively (and in the opposite extreme as Apple), build your own PC and install one of the many popular (free) *nix distros for total freedom.

Yes and total un user friendlyness at that! FUN!

[anitract]

Well unless you're going for LFS, or Gentoo, or even Slackware, that's not much of a problem these days.

Anyway, anyone who can build a computer can learn a new OS. Try ubuntu for a nice clean, friendly start.

[Faustus]

anittract I try linux again every year or so to see how thing are going. I just did try Ubuntu, it went ok I guess until I found out the kernel I had to use for my CPU didn't support Shockwave being installed. Oh and the error I got just trying to install VLC. Oh and the manual setup of several major files to allow me to access a partition that it KNEW was there.

Sorry, linux is still not ready for primetime desktop use.

[anitract]

To each his own, of course.

I haven't had the experiences you've had, which is probably a good thing, else I might have given up. Then again, I'm the kind of person that likes total control of my systems (which open source software provides) and I also enjoy learning about how they work/function. So troubleshooting problems isn't an issue with me.

Really though, I don't think linux is any harder than...oh, say, DOS was when it was popular (yet people still used it).

I guess I am not a "mainstream" user. In my mind though comparing linux today with linux five years ago makes some distros near-mainstream, if not there all ready.

[shelbyGT]

I like how they mention how better the "new" yahoo mail is then gmail. I have a yahoo account and see very little difference and I still get about a bajillion spams a day on it.

I was thinking the same thing. I can't believe how spam filled my hotmail/yahoo accounts are to my gmail account. (It's also sad that I have so many accounts)

[lordsmurf]

anittract I try linux again every year or so to see how thing are going. ...........Sorry, linux is still not ready for primetime desktop use.

Same here. Been doing it since about ..... whatever year Linus released it, actually. As far as I'm concerned, it's still as stubborn now as it was 5-10 years ago.

Maybe next year.

[Faustus]

Really though, I don't think linux is any harder than...oh, say, DOS was when it was popular (yet people still used it).

I guess I am not a "mainstream" user. In my mind though comparing linux today with linux five years ago makes some distros near-mainstream, if not there all ready.

No way, you only had to worry about two basic config files with DOS, config.sys and autoexec.bat. There are like a million different configs with linux and because of its open source nature each change, each configuration is following is own silly set of rules.

It can drive a person silly. I'd love to be one of those people who are like "yeah man I know linux well" but it has horribly confusing documentation and so many flavors that its just a pointless waste of my time in its current incarnation.

Give it another 5 years and maybe. I mean its getting BETTER.

Frankly I'd loves to see an UNIFIED attempt to do what OSX did with BSD to Linux. Ditch everything except the basic system and write a REAL first class GUI to sit on top of it.

Having "full control" is nice, but it should be an option NOT a requirement.

[anitract]

Hum, well I know what you mean, but I still say that with most of the "user friendly" distros, you do NOT need to get into config files 98% of the time. There has been a lot of progress with GUIs for various configuration files.

DOS was a command line interface. I don't agree that it was easier than linux today. Why? Because most of today's distros use desktop environments of some sort. You can't seriously think that a user who was using DOS commands regularly in the 1980s, couldn't use KDE or GIMP, can you?

Ah heck, I'll just say it: users today are more lazy than ever (not refering specifically to you, but users in general). We all want our pretty OS handed to us on a silver platter. Hey, I'm guilty of it too to an extent, but my point is that it wasn't always this way, and when it wasn't, users were forced to learn.

I am just rambling. This subject annoys me because as a computer "geek" people constantly ask for help without ever wanting to do anything themself...aka learning how to do it.

EDIT: To clarify, I am not a linux snob, but might be coming off that way. My main rigs are windows-based due to software I need to use.

[anitract]

The next generation of KDE looks promising, by the way. I am excited with the possible innovation there.

[lordsmurf]

You can't seriously think that a user who was using DOS commands regularly in the 1980s, couldn't use KDE or GIMP, can you?

I can. Because I am.

GIMP crashes too much for one.

And KDE is hardly user-friendly. It's nothing like Mac or Windows.
Everything is confounded and complex.
All KDA does well is "be pretty".

Linux text commands? Fuh-get-about-it.

[Faustus]

You can't seriously think that a user who was using DOS commands regularly in the 1980s, couldn't use KDE or GIMP, can you?

I can. Because I am.

GIMP crashes too much for one.

And KDE is hardly user-friendly. It's nothing like Mac or Windows.
Everything is confounded and complex.
All KDA does well is "be pretty".

Linux text commands? Fuh-get-about-it.

Agreed. I'm ONE Of those DOS users your talking about.

[anitract]

hehe f33r teh n3wb35 :P

[Faustus]

*puts on his old man beard*

...and in my day it wasn't any of this 1337 or leet crap it was elite and we said the whole damned word.