Microsoft has a web browser - Google comes out with a browser.

Google has a great search service - Microsoft comes out with a great (bing) search service.

Microsoft has an operating system - Google plans an operating system.

Google’s recent announcement to have a Chrome operating system available in about a year has generated a lot of chatter lately - but is it really a Windows-killer?  I think not - not anytime soon, that is.  Although the era of Vista will soon be behind Microsoft and Windows 7 (still in beta) is earning favorable early reviews, the primary reason Google’s OS won’t vanquish Microsoft’s Windows operating systems is that while the two companies’ browsers and search engines fulfill exactly the same roles, a direct Windows-Chrome OS comparison is a lot less apt.

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You have the operating system.  You have your web browser - maybe it’s Firefox or some other extensible browser running half a dozen or more add-ons.  Maybe (like me) you have the Thunderbird email client, also with several add-ons installed.  Then there’s iTunes, Acrobat, Flash, Office - not to mention all the apps you’ve installed on your iPhone.  All in, you could easily have a dozen or more pieces of software, all regularly ‘phoning home’ for updates and alerting you to install them  - it all gets to be a little much at times, doesn’t it?
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