I've been looking at the poll above in this section and other Google related posts..thought I would add a new discussion..
I used to work at a large European ISP and we have endless meetings for years about ASP( Application Service Providers) and how we could make money from renting application to users of our ISP.
Years later..still no one is really making money or taking advantage of the market there is out there.

I used to be into Citrix and thought that would eventually win a big market share but like many other great ideas...MS did real bad harm to their chances..I am into Linux but I feel that Linux needs a household name to bring it to the masses-its seen as a geeks tool still;( even though with releases such as Madrivia and Suse they are even more usable and user friendly than Winblows..with all the help you could ever need off-line and on-line so to say that there's no support for Linux is rubbish ( on a side note one day at work for a giggle we phoned technical support at MS in the USA with all our licence codes contracts etc for some technical support on server problem we knew the answer to-it was a simple problem requiring a patch and a reboot..it took me 3 phone calls lasting 35 mins and about 1 hour of net searching filling out on-line forms etc to get the answer we already knew..We did the same thing with Novell for support on Suse..withing 3 clicks on their webpage we had a local number-turned out to be 5 miles away, the guy couldn't help but transferred me over to the technical support in USA on the price of my local call!! got through to a guy who solved the problem in 10 mins who then transferred me back to the local agent who wanted to know if we were satisfied!!-now THATS service!!)

Google is more powerful than Citrix and Linux and are in a great place to challenge MS for the worlds biggest market- OS and Office.
I see on the boards here lots of rumours that Google are making their own OS...yes this is 95% on the cards!! and I am pretty confident it will be a Linux flavour ) and you gotta be sure Google Desktop-Earth-Google Player-Talk-Picasa-Gmail-Blogger-Web Accelerate-Av-Calender-Gadgets etc etc will be integrated along with the jewel in their crown Google Office..
Google are being clever at the moment because all of these products are free to download atm..and look they are ALL betas.

What I am getting at is ...Google are making a TON of software right now..all from different teams that can be integrated together with Linux under the hood to create a very powerful and user friendly OS..especially if you've tested all the software years before like Gmail and Earth and have data stored on Googles servers already
Now comes the next step...all the Betas stop..you can only use them inside the Google OS..forcing you to download it or buy it..I see Google giving you the OS for free on a download..$15-20 on a cd and then here's the kicker...all the programs you are used to and rely on...you will need a Google account to use them..Then you will hire out the software you need on a monthly or yearly basis.
For the predicted amount of users it will have the payment per month could be really small like $2 or so..think of 50 million users spending $2 a month = $100mill a month X12 = $1200mill a year.And that just a conservative estimate..

I think the hardest thing for Google to do is to get a billing platform running not altering a Linux Os and bolting in all the Google apps..But hey Google have some real smart programmers and I hope this wouldn't be too problematic.

They have a market of millions just waiting for them to sort this out I am sure!! this hopefully will be the nail in the coffin for MS and Winblows!!!Remember there's been a market of millions waiting years now for Vista...and I think its no coincidence Gates has stepped down from overall control at MS..I think he sees what I see...BIG trouble on the horizon with Vista sales..Didnt I see the other day Ms allow a countries govt to buy all of its pirated copies of Winblows for $2 a head? look at MS chase the money

Imagine MS fighting Google-The rest of the Linux world and Apple for rights to your OS and applications.I think the lumbering beast that MS has become will have to retreat to its cave and sit on its ever dwindling pile of gold!

My thoughts on the future of the OS-Mark420

I totally agree with you. I think that Google will eventually prevail over Microsoft. However, only time can tell. Plus, Linux and/or UNIX is going to be the future of computing again like it did in the 1970s.

xboxrulz

Well, all kingdoms have to fall sooner or later, and Microsoft is no exception.

The thing is when, and I don't think it'll be that much in the near future. I mean, think about the average user. They have a PC with Windows on it. Do they really want to spend all that time switching to Linux/Unix? Some people argue that it isn't that hard to switch, but the average Joe is not going to listen. I mean, come on, what's easier--switching your OS or just sticking with what you have now? It's obviously sticking with what you have now. Unless Windows causes these users a huge problem, I doubt they'll be interested in switching. Necessity is still the only thing that will force people to change.

Now, if Google gave out an OS...that'd be a different story. Especially for the newer generation of computer users.

Sure migrating to Linux would be a pain in the ass for a lot of winblows users but imagine an installation package that would boot the linux kernel scan your hardware scan your current copy of winblows and its installed programs then a new shiney interface for Wine that could scan the Winblows and copy all of the Dlls that are working for Wine..also a lot more added program support for Wine.
It would also be nice to run a "light" copy of Linux in the Winblows partition for a few weeks to get used to it..then when you are ready to change to Linux..for it to blow out the Windows partition and then so a rescan of apps dlls hardware etc and rebuild Linux into new fully sized partitions with the workign winblows apps settings copied over too.

It would be much easier for first time Linux users to see a lot of thier winblows apps sitting on thier desktop on first boot in a fully loaded Linux distro.

Like I was talking about in my post..google will be in a position to do this..because users of the new google OS would be familier right away with all of the intergrated google apps.

I want to switch to Linux but what I fear is that I will not be able to play the PC games because of their incompatibility. This I don't know iff they're compatible with Linux OS are they? Cuz that's the only thing keeping me from moving to Linux. Also about the softwares are they also compatible with the Linux OS? If they are then I'll try it out.

BTW where can i download a light version of Linux?

I think it would be cool if Google was making their own OS, but it's not necessarily going to be what everyone switches to. There are a lot of good OSes out there, and I think the average user would be unlikely to use anything they haven't heard of before, at least at the beginning. One unfortunate thing, i've found, is that most people I talk to in the real world haven't even heard of linux!

Not too long ago, I had a dual-boot with Windows XP and Debian Linux. Windows was my default operating system, which I used for practically everything. I installed Linux as a testbed operating system to see whether I could survive on it alone. The majority of programs I used then and now are open-source freeware, so the transition to Linux was a cakewalk.

There was only one problem: there wasn't a Microsoft Word, Excel, or PowerPoint for Linux. I tried OpenOffice and KOffice, but there were too many formatting incompatibilities that I could not afford. In my experience, the standard document format at the workplace and in the universities is based on Microsoft Office. Many times a week, I exchange work documents back and forth with others. So, I am forced, not by myself but by my colleagues, to heavily rely on the Office format. Unfortunately, my hands are tied.

If not for this, I would have switched and stayed with Linux. But until the Open Document Format reaches a critical mass in terms of popularity, I am sticking with Windows. Yes, yes, there is the Mac, but their machines are pretty pricey.

This post has been edited by webintern: Aug 23 2006, 12:11 AM

Funny to read this, I've been thinking the same about the google OS (being nothing else but another linux distribution with all the google applications already installed).
I do doubt whether google is going to make everything dependant on the OS, it would be pretty painfull and I doubt that everybody is going to switch. I think Google won't be asking money for everything, eg. gmail, yes you get +2Gb storage, but think about this, there are many other free +1Gb mail accounts available on the net, Picasa albums, google earth, ... all have alternatives that do work on Windows.

And last but not least, Linux still is a pain in the ass compared to windows. There are distro's that can't even play MP3's, WMA+ probably won't work either and there's no single and easy way to install software. I know there are several package managers for different distributions, RPMs are fairly common, but many apps still need compilation before they can work, that is not what a windows users is wanting to do. What they want to do is download the installer (from everywhere, not a single portal for a single distribution) double-click it and run the application.

Linux is still to shatered to conquer the world, imho.

AHH This makes me want to tell you guys what VMWARE is cooking up but I'm not allowed!!!!

I just need to say there is a very bright future and there is going to be more then just Google, Linux, and MS fighting in the OS world, and they will be fighting in a way you can never imagine.

It is going to be a totally new technology, that are implementing some ideas that have been popping around.


I'm not sure when they have the press release for it, but it is probably not for a while because they are still developing some of the core components but man its going to be coooool.


Maybe someone works for VMWare here or has a friend who does and knows what I'm talking about...

i understand you bro.. i was also staying in windows for the same reason until i have found out a nicer method.. one is to develop a software to read and translate the documents that can be compatible to linux Wine..

the 2nd is to convert those data into PDF.. i use the second option.. I generate PDF Editable files.. =)

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anyway.. since i was a programmer i have solution 1 also in my unit..