Why Google is parking its tanks on Microsoft's lawn

It is the longest, most-expected parking of tanks upon a lawn. Google's announcement that it will introduce an operating system for computers, the long-anticipated "GoogleOS" - though it prefers to call "Google Chrome OS" - means that the irresistible force of the online world is going to go head-to-head with the immovable object of personal computing.

Observers have been expecting Google to launch its "Google OS" literally for years. But the search giant has held back, denying any such plans. But the launch last year of its Android operating system for mobile phones made it clear that its intent was broader than just search.

And PC manufacturers who want to sell more netbooks - the light, cheap sub-laptops that have seen explosive sales growth in the past year - will be cheering, as Google's announcement means they suddenly get a very big bargaining chip in talking to Microsoft about prices they pay for Windows licences.

Google, announcing the move through - inevitably - a blog post, which has become the web version of a press conference, says that "the operating systems that browsers run on were designed in an era where there was no web" and that its Chrome OS is "our attempt to re-think what operating systems should be".

A certain amount of reality-checking is already required. Windows 95, Microsoft's first operating system that was used when the internet became available to the majority, certainly wasn't designed in the era of the web (its connectivitiy was hastily bolted on, which led down the years to disastrous networking-inspired security holes), but its more recent products, especially Windows Vista and the upcoming Windows 7, post-date the web very substantially. Microsoft's problem is simply that it's tied to the "legacy" code of the past - although Windows 7, which will be officially released this October, tries to shuffle off that history, and is Microsoft's best effort to date to deal with the reality of the web - which includes the constant attempts by hackers to break into the user's computer.

It's that security angle that has been Microsoft's achilles heel from the inception, leading many Windows users to run at least one piece of security software. Vista, released in 2007, has also given people a creeping feeling that the computer gets in the way too much - as security dialogs warning of risky moves keep appearing.

Hence Google's emphasis that "speed, simplicity and security are the key aspects of Google Chrome OS". It is promising a quick start ("a few seconds") and "completely redesigning the underlying security architecture... so that users don't have to deal with viruses, malware and security updates." A clear dig at Microsoft.

The operating system, of course, is the basic set of programs that tell a processor how to behave: the same set of hardware can run Windows or Apple's Mac OSX, and it's only the operating system that makes it function like one or the other. Almost all PCs ship with Windows pre-installed; companies that want to sell PCs with Linux, the well-known free operating system, often get a hard time from Microsoft, and have to demonstrate that they aren't shipping pirated Windows copies. Only Apple machines ship with Mac OS X installed.

Basically, the Chrome OS will be Linux with Google's own code stuck on top. Quite how that gels with "completely redesigning the underlying security architecture" isn't clear, since Linux's model is well-known: it's relatively safe, but not impregnable.

More to the point is what Google's commercial model is here. Obviously, it can offer Chrome OS as an option to PC manufacturers who might otherwise be putting Windows 7 on their machines. Why now? Because Microsoft has left a significant weakness on its flank with its plans to limit how many applications can run on Windows 7 installed on "netbooks" - the light, cheap form of laptops that have seen explosive sales in the past two years.

Microsoft has already had to extend the life of Windows XP. It officially killed it off for regular PCs in June 2007, but had to extend its life for netbooks until January of this year - and then beyond - because Vista is too big to fit on netbooks' limited hard drives and RAM. And netbook makers demanded XP - or else they'd put Linux on board.

So for Windows 7 - which will finally kill off XP - it announced that it would limit netbooks to running only a few applications at once, such as browsing, email, and three others. If users wanted to do more, they'd have to pay to upgrade the Windows licence. That kept the price of the original Windows licence down for the manufacturer, while for Microsoft it meant netbooks didn't pose too much of a threat to better-paying manufacturers making larger machines.

It's a rough deal for the netbook customers, though, since their machines are capable of running the whole product. But Microsoft has been hurt by netbooks: their growth has led to its first fall in revenues, because manufacturers have been buying cheap Windows XP licences instead of pricier Windows Vista ones.

Windows 7 was going to be the saviour of the Windows franchise. And so it would be, if it hadn't been for those meddling kids at Google.

Chrome OS is being aimed up and down the computer scale, from small mobile devices (it could run on the chips that power Apple's iPhone, for example) right up to desktop machines. Google will configure it so that the system ties you into its Google Mail and Docs services, while also allowing local storage for those (increasingly unusual, in its world view) times when you're offline: "Chrome OS is being created for people who spend most of their time on the web", as it says.

Don't hold your breath, though. Chrome OS isn't expected until late next year. Even so, that's enough to upset Microsoft's plans with Windows 7. The company may even have to go back on its restrictions for low-end hardware. Microsoft's biggest problem is that Google probably won't be charging for Chrome OS. If it proves at all popular with users, Microsoft's entire business model - charging for operating system licences - comes into question.

And netbooks, which started out being Linux-based but quickly shifted back to Windows when ordinary users couldn't troubleshoot them, will definiteiy gain fresh impetus. The weakness of the Linux "brand" of operating system is that it hasn't had a single brand; there have been competing versions (Ubuntu, Fedora, Red Hat.. the list goes on). But Google will provide a rallying flag for developers, who will be able to pitch into the evolution of the product. It will be interesting to see whether Ubuntu's developers throw their lot in here, to strengthen it, or continue to plough their own furrow.

The point always to bear in mind is that Google's overall strategy is to get everyone on the web more and more of the time, until the boundaries between what's on their local system and what's on the web blur completely - or, even better, storage in the "cloud" (where Google can search and index and sell ads against it) becomes the rule, and the computer you hold just the extension of the web. It didn't seem to matter before if Microsoft was the means by which people went onto the web; Google made money from them once they were there. But now, it is going for the jugular - perhaps spurred into the announcement by Microsoft's recent moves in search with its revitalised search offering, Bing.

On that basis, Google - and the web - long since won the fight: when was the last time you heard someone say "It's a fantastic, must-have program. Only available on Windows, of course"?

Actually, there is an answer to that: Google's Chrome browser, released last autumn. Mac users are still waiting for a proper working version.

Even so, it won't be a comfortable time today at Microsoft's Redmond headquarters. And you can be sure that there will be some interesting meetings between Microsoft's sales people for Windows licensing and PC manufacturers over the next few months as more details of the Chrome OS emerge.