Blang!

Hot on the heels of my posting on the future of mobile devices comes a story on Venture Beat describing how they got the Google operating system Andriod running on an ASUS netbook.

Android’s Linux core seems to be giving it an early advantage due to Linux’s easy portability and vast hardware support. The article doesn’t mention it but some netbooks have support for 3G sim cards which just makes compelte sense.

I want to point out that a 3G enabled netbook running Android is still not the dream device I’m looking for but it’s getting close. The essential component of the dream device is the hardware. It must be cell phone sized but when docked, become a fully functional workstation (keyboard, mouse, full sized monitor etc.)

Netbooks aren’t the hardware solution. he netbooks are really just crappy laptops. Too big to carry around and with few of the “mobile” featuers that a smart phone would have.

They key aspect of the article is the discussion about how many manufacturers see Andriod as a replacement operating system to Microsoft based systems.

I don’t think it’s a band thing that Google has decided to jump into the browser arena. But I wonder if it’s going to make much of a dint in IE?

The people who are still using IE are comprised of three primary categories. People who genuinely like the Microsoft browser, people who just don’t care enough to switch, and people who ask “what’s a browser?”

There isn’t much of an opportunity for Crome in any of those categories. Instead, the users who are technical enough to switch browsers are already using Firefox and will be the ones willing to try Crome.

Microsoft’s IE will continue to decline at roughly the same rate simply because Microsoft is a declining company. Google Crome will grow at the expense of Firefox, and Safari will grow at the same rate as the sale of Macs.

As a total percentage, desktop web browsers will shrink in market share as mobile devices such as the iPhone continue to gain in popularity. If Google releases a version of Crome for their Andriod platform then it will see significant growth in that area.

The big news last week was that Microsoft has made a 40Billion+ offer to buy Yahoo! Supposedly, Microsoft thinks this will form an unstoppable Google-killer, but their wrong.

Merging two increasingly irrelevant giant corporations will not only fail to stop their decline, but accelerate it. After Microsoft swallows Yahoo! it will set about killing off anything that looks like it threatens Microsoft’s traditional dominance. Unfortunately, that’s precisely the most innovative areas of Yahoo! This clash of cultures will surely result in a mass exidious of top-talent, many of which are likely to find a home over at Google.

Personally I like Yahoo!’s chances better on its own. Its certainly come down a long way from being the search leader but somehow has managed to retrench and prevent itself from falling into complete irrelevancy. When you’re traveling at the speed of the internet and fall into a tailspin, just pulling up and leveling off is a heck of an accomplishment. It proves you must have something going for you.

Microsoft, on the other hand, was supposed to be at the top of its game. One last chance to really cash in on an OS upgrade before OSes start to become more or less irrelevant. But instead of a golden egg, the golden laid a lead balloon. Now, Microsoft is lost. It already knows Vista is a dud and there is no hope of ever selling it as good upgrade option but it plans to force the upgrade on people are also in jeopardy because of those pesky Mac adds! People won’t upgrade, they’ll switch to Macs!

Don’t get me wrong, Microsoft will still be a huge player for a long time to come, but where can Microsoft go from here?

There is only one place; down.