Is Google turning Windows into just a collection of device drivers?

Michael Gartenberg | August 22, 2005, 11:55 AM

David Card talk about Google's latest efforts. As I have said, I don't think there's a need for Google to do their own browser. It's much easier for them to co-opt Microsoft here and this is the way to do it.  I agree that they're doing a great job of demoting IE to a rendering engine and now it looks like there's some nice APIs available to build your own sidebar stuff as well. As for the OS becomes device drivers? That's pretty reminiscent of when Mark Andreessen called Windows a collection of device drivers that runs Netscape. It was that type of rhetoric that really caused MSFT to go on the warpath is it represented a fundamental challenge to their core desktop OS business. Be interesting to see how they react here now that Google is determined to control much of the desktop experience, using Microsoft's own applications and platforms to do it.

I'm going to claim partial victory. I saidGoogle would do a browser before it would do a portal. Tell me, how much more does thislook like a browser than thislooks like a portal?  I guess the plan is to demote browser to "rendering engine," and combine all its other functions into "desktop search," er, that is, "Google Desktop." Gee, it wasn't that long ago when Microsoft set the agenda for personal technology nomenclature. What's next, "operating system" becomes "device drivers" and "graphics libraries?" (File system functions are already under assault...) I reiterate the mantra that built Microsoft: who controls the UI controls the user; who controls the API controls the programmer. Great businesses are made of this. [David Card]