Is Google going to take Microsoft's throne?

Microsoft has built it's industry off of it's operating systems. They then branched out and created Windows Mobile, Bing, Internet Explorer, and most recently Windows 7.

Microsoft has been seeing a lot of competition lately from what used to be the least likely source, a search engine. Google has been branching out providing tons more services than their Search, slowly but surely creating so many little products that I'm sure even CEO Eric Schmidt doesn't even know how many total they have.

First things first; Google Created Google Search, then Microsoft creates MSN Search. Sparking the beginning of a war. MSN search was nothing compared to Google's however it started out as the default search engine for Internet Explorer.

Next up, Microsoft comes up with Hotmail, a web-based email service. Google decides, "hey email is pretty simple, lets give it a try". Google Releases Gmail in beta Gmail becomes one of the leading email services right next to hotmail and yahoo mail. Google takes a step forward and says deleting emails is such a pain and you may lose files that you didn't intend to delete and well that causes quite a bit of trouble. Google basically starts giving it's users an "infinite" amount of email storage. It's not truly infinite however if you needed to get more space you can pay 5 bucks a year to get 20 more gigs of space!  Google then releases Gmail Labs, labs starts something that only offline email clients had hardly even begun to do, Gmail Labs offers users the ability to add features to Gmail that would Enhance their experience and make Gmail much more personal and customizable. Google finally takes their beta tag off of Gmail since businesses didn't like the idea of paying for a service that was in beta(meaning it was still being worked on) they thought that meant it had alot of bugs. Google however had the beta sign there I believe to make this statement: "We'll never truly be done working on Gmail, it's always going to be a work in progress." This by no means, is stating that the product is not business ready.

Microsoft creates MSN Toolbar for IE and Firefox. Google creates the Google Toolbar for IE and Firefox and other web browsers, then creates a kind of friendship with Mozilla cross promoting each-other. Google's toolbar gets customizable extensions to enhance the web browser. MSN toolbar follows along adding some extensions but not making very significant progress.

Some of these are not in direct order however I believe this was big, Microsoft created their Office Suite, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and a few others. The Office suite becomes a huge hit, and the names of the software becomes known by almost all computer users. Google, begins work on Google Documents, an online text editor, spreadsheet editor, presentation editor... a pdf viewer.. and this list shall go on... Google's online Office sweet becomes a hit among the Techies and starts to branch out to more students and finally to businesses and it becomes popular among alot of the world, still however not as well known as Microsoft Office, but gaining popularity none-the-less. Google makes documents editable by multiple people, otherwise known as collaborating. Microsoft makes Office Documents Collaboratable(is that even a word?) in order to combat Google and Zoho's collaboration features. Online collaboration with Microsoft Office doesn't catch on and Microsoft releases Microsoft Office 2007, fixing many bugs adding a few features and mainly focusing on making the interface simpler and easier to use, however users of the previous versions of Microsoft Office get a little frustrated since the entire UI(User Interface) has changed. Google begins adding widgets to their Google Documents, making alot more possible with Google Documents. Microsoft decides it's days of being completely offline are numbered, they begin to work on an Office sweet that runs in the browser, however their Suite only displays the files it can't edit them.

Microsoft Internet Explorer is competing head to head with Mozilla Firefox for several years and is losing in popularity regardless of the fact Internet Explorer comes pre-installed with Windows. "What's the best thing about Internet Explorer?   you can use it to download Firefox". Google Steps in and says Internet Explorer flat out stinks, and Mozilla Firefox is great but not fast enough and not quite as secure as it could be. Google creates Google Chrome which had started out as a rumor, originally people thought Google Chrome would be an Operating System Developed by Google, there was concept drawings everywhere, no one knew what it would turn out like. Google finally releases Chrome to the public and shows that it is a Web Browser, with speeds that compete with Firefox, and a slick simple Interface that focuses on screen real estate. Google Chrome begins gaining a powerful following after advertising a tiny bit on it's search page and YouTube. Google is estimated to pass up Internet explorer, and be in direct competition with Firefox in a few years, Google releases the source code to Google Chrome, as Chromium.


Microsoft develops Windows Mobile and it becomes one of the leading Smart phone OS's. Google looks at the imperfections of the current phone OS's and begins work on Android, a free open source phone OS. The first Google Phone gets released, the G1. The Android software explodes in abilities making it one of the best if not the best phone OS on the market. More Google Phones are released. Suddenly Google shocks everyone by giving all of it's employees a phone called the Nexus One which runs the most up to date version of the Android OS. Techies are going nutz hunting down pictures and videos of it (myself included in the madness), Google releases the phone to the public with a brand new style, the Nexus Phone is the first Phone to be sold by the provider unlocked, or you can also choose which carrier you want to use with your phone!
(To check out the Nexus One click here)

Microsoft is well known for their Windows Operating System, mainly Windows XP and now 7. Google steps into the game and plays around with the thought, "why have a full operating system? there's not that much of a point, almost all the things you can do on the computer can be done on the web, why don't we make an Operating System that is mostly just a Web Browser". Google begins it's work on Google Chrome OS, based upon it's web browser. Techies go WILD, they love or hate the idea. Google Chrome OS source code is released, and computer manufacturers begin using it as their Operating system. Some future predictions are that Google Chrome OS will gain as a popular OS, taking a while to get going probably a few years becoming a main operating system for cheap netbooks and tablet PCs, then way down the road Google Chrome OS and Android may merge and become one operating system(sort of).

*NOTETOSELF TALK ABOUT BING AND ADD PICTURES*

Now both companies have made many other competing things however I don't have enough time on my hands to write about them all! :P

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