On Goobuntu

Writing the post about a greener Linux got me thinking about what Microsoft should fear the most. As I was looking around I came across the answer: Goobuntu.

One of the enduring problems Linux has is its lack of brand awareness. Most people stick with Windows because they have heard of Microsoft. I guess the best known Linux distro is Ubuntu and I’d guess less than 2% of people have heard of it. I think this is why MS shows little apparent concern about it’s core OS business. However a Google backed OS would be a different prospect. Google has a consumer brand people know and generally trust. So long as they delivered a clean Linux OS and didn’t do anything daft like invading privacy they would be onto a winrar.

Netscape’s ghost

Google’s reticence may be explained by a residual fear of Microsoft. They claim not to be concerned with MS at all and, in reality, they should not be. That said I think any fears are emotional not rational. As Google was growing up MS was taking Netscape to the cleaners. Netscape famously invited the attack by proclaiming the death of MS and ended up getting rather more than they bargained for. Whilst Google is clearly not vulnerable in the same way Netscape was they still may be reticent about making such a clear attack on MS. Eric Schmidt is also a Novell refugee, another company bruised by MS which may add to the caution over the OS game. Ironically if they did release Goobuntu they would be doing to MS what they did to Netscape – cross subsidising a free product to disrupt the core business of a competitor. Perhaps it is regulators and not fear of MS which is preventing them making the move.

They have no such reticence when it comes to mobile as the release of Android attests. This may actually boil down to the fact that Google sees the future of search as mobile and are preparing to shift their business in that direction rather than any fear of MS. Their recent spectrum bid points in this direction and it would be the simpler explanation. In a way this is worse news for MS, Google showing no interest in the computer OS market indicates they think there is no future in that business. Maybe the only thing more scary for MS than Google releasing an OS is Google not releasing an OS.

Read more:
On Linux
On Ubuntu
On breaking up Microsoft

On Windows 7

Leaked screen shots of Windows 7 have been posted by Crunchgear. All I can say is CONGRATULATIONS MICROSOFT!!!

It looks just like Leopard, only badly designed!

On breaking up Microsoft

I’m always interested in the psyche of a company, it’s like a rhythm the company moves to and runs subconsciously through everything they do. I think it’s why some people do brilliantly at one company and disastrously at another. One of the reasons I want to work in my own start-up is to have a corporate culture which suits me well. I have experienced this when I was at Orange and I did my best work there.

There is something deeply embedded in Microsoft that seems unable to keep things simple. So even when they have a good idea like the Xbox they can’t resist putting out four different versions of it. Apple has parodied this trait in its commercials, some have speculated how a MS iPod would have turned out and others have pointed out its muddled branding. MS has recently hired marketing guru Alex Bogusky to help them turn things around but I think the problem lies deeper than simply changing the marketing.

Vista is so heavy that users are baulking at the basic requirements needed to run it and sticking with XP. I’ve said before I think the future lies in much lighter operating systems. MS really needs to forget about building an even bulkier Windows 7, throw out the entire code base which is giving it such problems and set off an internal competition to build a new OS. Pick five of the most creative programmers give them all their own company, a stack of cash and let them get on with it. No rules – let them build it on top of Linux if they want to – and see who wins. Let Windows and Office lumber on if they like but get some fresh air into the company.

WL Gore and Associates is a uniquely well run company. One of the principles it employs is to break up any business unit once it gets bigger than 250 people. It does this to maintain a start-up atmosphere and to avoid stifling creativity. This is the road Microsoft needs to take – ironically this is to impose the anti-trust ruling on itself. Microsoft itself could become the holding company and take its history of muddled brands into the past. In its place Xbox, Live Search, (ahem) Zune, and what ever other brands it decides to develop would then be separate companies with only a parent in common. It is no coincidence that its only post-Windows success, the Xbox, is run as autonomous unit. Ballmer is apparently moving in this direction by trying to develop more internal autonomy. He should go the whole hog and break the company up.

On Linux

Attitudes to Linux is one of the great dividing lines between technical and mainstream users. From what I read from Linux enthusiasts it is fantastic and Windows is terrible by comparison.

Now for programmers, using Linux to build out a back end is doubtless as fantastic as they say. I have no idea since I will never do this but for users trying to install a front end Linux is terrible. My only experience is with installing Ubuntu on an old laptop only to rip it out moments later. The problem was I couldn’t get anything to work, the wireless didn’t work, printer drivers didn’t work. Nothing. This may be down to my technical incompetence but Windows XP is much more usable. I have never used Vista, now having switched to Leopard.

The Ubuntu UI wasn’t too bad and I’m sure if it or some other Linux distribution had come pre-installed like on the Asus I would be fine with it. With more and more of my applications migrating to the browser I don’t really care about using Word or Excel when Open Office can open documents adequately enough. I think I’d probably have to keep a machine capable of running MS Office somewhere but my reliance on those programs is waning fast.

People are already starting to speculate about what is in Windows 7 but I think the Andreessen prophecy about the OS migrating to the web is finally coming true. About a decade too late to save Netscape but there you go.

This could be Linux’s time. If someone can reliably put out a stripped down, good looking Linux OS then the time could come when Windows finally has a worthy competitor. MS is scrambling to get into the UMPC market perhaps realising that simpler operating systems which can fit on smaller machines are the way of the future. This makes Microsoft far more vulnerable to a nimble competitor as its advantage lies in having thousands of programmers making an ever more complicated OS for ever more powerful machines.

If machines start getting simpler and less powerful because more is migrating to the web where does that leave MS? Turning round the super tanker takes a long time. Getting into the console market with the Xbox was a clever move to diversify but making up all the lost revenues from its core business will be a hard task.