Google Phases Out Windows O/S Over Security Concerns

Google Goes Mac or Linux Only

[incrediBILL]

Google says no more Windows, Mac or Linux only... [ft.com]

New hires are now given the option of using Apple’s Mac computers or PCs running the Linux operating system. “Linux is open source and we feel good about it,” said one employee. “Microsoft we don’t feel so good about.”

However, if you read between the lines it's also a company-wide effort to force everyone to eat their own dog food and make sure everything runs on Chrome OS.

When one of the world's largest companies goes completely open source successfully and others follow it could spell seriously bad news for future Microsoft profits.

But many employees were relieved they could still use Macs and Linux. “It would have made more people upset if they banned Macs rather than Windows,”

When Chrome OS is officially shipping, and the Android vs iPhone wars heat up to a fever pitch, I'll bet Macs will be the next OS banned just so they don't contribute to Apple's coffers as a matter of principle.

[J_RaD]

When one of the world's largest companies goes completely open source successfully and others follow it could spell seriously bad news for future Microsoft profits.

goog isn't exactly a run of the mill fort500 company, they are filled with techies not standard employees.

the fact that they can pull off a open source business model means NOTHING.

[J_RaD]

oh yes this just crossed my mind. I wonder if all these goog people are doing their work on laptops and android phones since eric s calls a desktop computer a dinosaur.

[graeme_p]

I'm not sure I see that as ridiculous. I suspect the cost to build/produce/support/update those items is far higher than the cost now of producing commodity hardware.

Support and update, true, but the marginal cost of production is zero.