Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer knows what to pay attention to right now and right now he’s looking at Apple and Android. Apple is creeping up in position behind Microsoft in the desktop front, and has pulled in the number four spot in operating systems this past year behind Linux. And Ballmer sees it all. “”We’re very focused on both Apple as a competitor and Linux as a competitor.”
And then there’s Google’s Android. Google? As an OS? What piece of the pie doesn’t this company have their hands in? Remember when you first heard of them as a search engine and thought “Google?? What kind of weird name is that??” Then you used it. Uh-huh. There was no looking back. Well, it seems you see “powered by Google” stamped all over the place these days, and the new Android phones are the ones that people are clamoring for. An open-source operating system? Yeah, Ballmer is concerned. Because he sees it as a competitor not only on phones, but coming to desktops and laptops as well.
Ballmer states “I think the dynamics with Linux is changing somewhat. I assume we’ll see Android-based, Linux-based laptops, in addition to phones, and we’ll see Google more and more as a competitor in the desktop operating system business than we ever have before.”
Well, this makes sense Steve, since pretty much what you need to run Linux is what you’d need to run Android, with some adaptations to some applications, since Android doesn’t run an X Server. Google seems to be hard at work in secret on something.
Apparently one-third of the traffic coming out of Google’s Mountain View is coming off computers using some “clandestine operating system.” Traffic was tracked, and none could be matched up with the tags of any known operating systems, leading many to speculate it was possibly their own Android related OS. Keeping it in the dark seems to be something they want. Their Android team is split up, with the core team in Boston, and others elsewhere. Android employees and non-Android Google employees don’t have too much contact with each other. No slipping any secrets.
So, it seems as though there is no longer such a big divider between a phone OS and a PC OS, and Ballmer says that Microsoft has revamped their investments in the client OS accordingly.
“The truth of the matter is all the consumer market mojo is with Apple and to a lesser extent BlackBerry. And yet, the real market momentum with operators and the real market momentum with device manufacturers seems to primarily be with Windows Mobile and Android,” Ballmer said.
He goes on to state that the real competition in the mobile arena is going to happen in two places. First will be sales of mobile-related software separate from the hardware. (Could that be why they supposedly show interest in creating a Windows Mobile online apps store??) Second, bundle together the software, hardware and services. Yeah, kind of like RIM’s Blackberry or the iPhone.
Will be interesting to see what they do and what they come up with. Hell, it can’t be any worse than what they did to us with Vista.
Via: CNET
“…And yet, the real market momentum with operators and the real market momentum with device manufacturers seems to primarily be with Windows Mobile and Android,“ Ballmer said.
Hmmm…. wonder why? I'm on year one of a two year lock in contract. I would get an iPhone or any new HTC phone if they were freely available. It's the phone companies that are stifling development of mobile devices… because they just don't get what consumers want. Witness the lack of integration throughout AT&T, Verizon, and Time Warner's telecommunications offerings.
Interesting post, thanks for sharing it.