ROBERT X. CRINGELY opinionates that the competition between Google and Microsoft is real but is mainly in defense of existing positions and won't change the industry link here. I think he ignores the competition Google offers Microsoft in several dimensions. Its competition based on the web--the cloud--won't drive Microsoft from the field, but will constrain it, giving consumers an alternative. I have several friends and my wife who only want a computer for access to the web and I expect that will grow with technical improvement. That makes a market for netbooks that will be perfectly useful using open source operating system software and that will change the market place for computers and for operating system software. Microsoft's Bing web search program appears to be offering Google search a run as well, though it may mainly damage other search providers. Still, I sense that these competitors are driving technological change and that consumers will benefit in both better software and lower costs.

Of course.

Google, like Microsoft before it, has been instrumental in forcing changes in the way the information industry does things.

It does not matter to me if Chrome OS winds up being a failure. What matters to me that it will foster competition and innovation in the industry.