Battle of 2 Cultures: Microsoft vs. Google
Although there’s always been criticism about MS being greedy, still MS products are cornering the market. Windows, like a satellite launching tower, is leading and bringing people to the internet world. And there, people will meet Google sooner or later. And Google brings together all kinds of novelties fascinating and surprising people.
Google is free but MS charges, which we could say that Google is civilian and MS is hegemonic. So when Google is impacting MS by launching another and yet another new application, people are cheered and applauding for their civilian hero.
However, after the applause, they go back to their MS products. They still use their MS OS, MS Office, MS Outlook and MS MSN. A few IT elites, mostly technical elites, might be still using Google’s apps, Gtalk, Earth, etc.
So, Google products get applause from MS users; however, except for its search engine, we could hardly see its deep reach in commoners. The collision of Google Chrome OS and MS Windows 7 may be the same old story: applause is applause; then we still use what we use.
From the product angle, MS products are actually civilian: following and learning from MAC OS till XP gradually taking on a distinctive style and satisfying customers. Google stuffs are inexpensive and with powerful functions and great originality, but also reflecting the laziness of those Silicon Valley geniuses: plain, not fashionable, and precarious sometimes.
Therefore, we could say the conflict of Google and MS is the conflict of engineer and salesman. The former is deep inside a world of technique and function; the latter is all about business: satisfy customers’ habit maximally.
The appearance of Netbook leaves some kind of space to engineer culture: Netbook itself is a contracted laptop at the sacrifice of functions, like the subtraction from MS to Google products.
But Netbook is just a transition for now. When Apple’s Netbook appears, people would realize that “this is what we seek”!
Google has Android taking over the mobile terminal, but their internal competition strategy brought out Chrome. So the hardware manufacturers get sacred: what if there is something new of Google coming next year? Google never did promise anything to the manufacturers but MS did, which might make them think: more money or tossing around?
History has proved that it might not be a good idea to reduce the retail price of manufacturers. Earlier, PC manufacturers bundled Linux trying to reduce the price. But the market showed no interest to the low price. Therefore, hardware manufacturers should understand that: customers need something useful, not just something cheap.
If hardware manufacturers have something useful and pretty, customers would love it. So, Apple stuffs are desirable, always.