I agree that all the victims of Vista should receive a free copy of Windows 7, but it’s unlikely that Microsoft will go down that road – they’re more interested in grabbing all the cash they can, perhaps because they can see the end of the line looming into view.

You are also correct that Google’s plans are a double-edged sword, and there is the potential for other Linux distributions to lose market share. However it is nice to see Microsoft getting squeezed so hard, and if a pyrrhic victory ensues I guess that’s the way the world turns (just as IBM was once the big bad monopoly and Microsoft was the brash underdog).

Whatever happens, those of who value our freedom will continue to use software whose ethos is consistent with ours; in particular I suspect that there will always be a place for diverse Linux distributions amongst the ranks of the technical cognoscenti.

Of course, the most amusing thing in all of this is watching the expressions on the faces of the “Microsoft is huge and rules the world and has buckets of cash and is insanely profitable and can never die” crowd as the realisation slowly seeps into their uncomprehending brains that all is not well in Redmond. Even the dullest Microsoft sycophants will learn that all glory is fleeting, and that not even Microsoft is immune.

They should give away Windows 7 for free for everyone who has a Vista OS. That would go a long way in helping “customer retention”.

The only thing I am slightly pissed about sll of this…is that for a number of years we already had a good alternative to Windows. It is Linux, and their premier distro Ubuntu has helped chang the shape of computing forever.

Ubuntu or Linux for that matter gets no major press, suddenly Google comes around with their own OS. And it is a major deal. Sure Google’s OS is based on a Linux kernel and is open source. But what will this do to Ubuntu, Fedora, Mandriva and others?

Maybe Google’s OS might be the stepping stone toward a double digit market share for open source operating systems. Then again, it may steal thunder from Ubuntu and other fine distros…There are two sides to this “coin”.

As they say..stay tuned

That’s a very interesting point, and MS are doubtless sweating bullets thinking about the possibility. Maybe they’ll have to give Windows 7 away for free.

Didn’t that Lenovo analyst recently say that Linux on netbooks is doomed and praised Windows right here on Tech Blorge?

http://tech.blorge.com/Structure:%20/2009/04/21/lenovo-analyst-linux-on-netbooks-is-doomed/

But now, since Google is releasing their own operating system (based from a Linux kernel) and because Google is behind it…it will be a success now?

Hello?

I wonder how that “clueless analyst” will chime on this one.

Also

Does this mean that Best Buy and other brick and mortar retailers will be selling non Windows netbooks right along side Windows netbooks and computers?

If anyone was lucky to find a Linux netbook a year ago at a brick and mortar retailer, it often was in a area away from the the rest of the laptops and netbooks or hidden away in the back room. You would have to ask for it, it wasn’t well promoted…to put it mildly…

Will that be the same game plan this time? Or since that Google is behind it the OS…the story will be different now?

Either makes sense, and doesn’t mean that Dell is completely out – just not in right away.

Dell was one of the first major producers to include an open source option that became mainstream, after all.