Chrome OS And The Microsoft Squeeze
Now that we’ve all actually seen Chrome OS, the immediate reaction that most are jumping to is that it won’t be killing Windows anytime soon. Obviously. But that doesn’t mean it won’t hurt Microsoft, and apply long-term pressure to the dominant OS. In fact, Google’s positioning for Chrome OS reads like a page out of Apple’s playbook, only from the opposite direction.
Google is aiming Chrome OS right at the bottom of the market. That is to say, cheap computers, netbooks. Apple, of course, takes the opposite approach, targeting the high end of the market with their high-quality and high-margin machines. If Google is successful with its Chrome OS netbooks (let’s call them ChromeBooks), what we could see is the squeezing of Microsoft, an idea I first laid out a month ago. With attacks from the top and bottom, Windows will be relegated to the middle. And ultimately, if Google has its way, marginalized.
There are a number of problems with being in the middle. First and foremost, the middle is average, boring, bland, etc. There’s nothing particularly wrong with that, unless you’re a company like Microsoft with an image problem. After years of taking hits, Microsoft is trying to revamp its image with expensive ads, new stores, and a new OS, among other things. But the middle is hard to sell. It’s neither the cheapest nor the best. It’s the thing people have to settle on.
