His take: It’s just another Linux distro.
“There’s many, many forms of Linux operating systems out there and packaged in different ways and booted in different ways,” Gates told News.com’s Ina Fried. “In some ways, I am surprised people are acting like there’s something new. I mean, you’ve got Android running on Netbooks. It’s got a browser in it.”
As part of our weekly podcast, my colleagues -- myself, CGI co-founder and former Motley Fool analyst, Tom Jacobs, CGI Growth & Value Focus portfolio manager Jason Fitnich and former author of the Circle of Competence blog, Jeff Annello -- discussed the cold war, if you will, between Microsoft (MSFT) and Google (GOOG)
Google announced its new Chrome operating system, a Web-based application. Chrome's dependence on internet access may limit its ability to challenge Windows, as consumers still find on-site access to files and programs useful.
In any case, it seems as if Microsoft and Google are locked in a low-grade battle for supremacy as each challenges the other on its home turf. In addition to Chrome, Google has targeted Microsoft's Windows Mobile platform with Android and the MS Office productivity suite with the free Google Docs. Conversely, Microsoft has launched yet another new search iteration, Bing.
The fight between Microsoft and Google is over who'll be seen as the world's most important tech company.
And not more than a month and a half ago, Microsoft unveiled its new search engine Bing, which it hopes will steal market share from Google and finally make it real money online.
From the news of it, it's a full-blown tech battle, complete with behind-the-scenes machinations to sic government regulators on each other.
It is, however, not a death match -- it's more of an fight to see who will be the King of Technology, since both companies pull in their billions through completely different siphons and are unlikely to severely wound one another any time soon.
Google pulled in $22 billion in revenue in 2008, 97 percent of which came tiny text ads bought by the keyword and placed next to search results or on pages around the web. Google makes a negligible amount of money bundling its online apps for businesses, charging $50 a head annually -- but mostly it just gives its online text editor, email and spreadsheet programs away.
By contrast, Microsoft sold $14.3 billion worth of Microsoft Word and PowerPoint and other business applications over the last nine months, making a profit of $9.3 billion. It made a further $16 billion in revenue in 2008 through sales of its operating systems, which range from XP installations on netbooks, to Vista, to Windows Mobile to its server software.
Google now plans its own range of operating systems, starting with Android, an open-source OS for small devices like smartphones, and Chrome OS, a browser-focused, open-source OS that will run on notebooks and desktops.
