Google PC to Hit Walmart? 459
Fahrvergnuugen writes "According to latimes.com Google is set to launch the Google PC which will run Google's own operating system. From the article: 'Sources say Google has been in negotiations with Wal-Mart Stores Inc., among other retailers, to sell a Google PC. The machine would run an operating system created by Google, not Microsoft's Windows, which is one reason it would be so cheap -- perhaps as little as a couple of hundred dollars.'"
For non-Article readers... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a piece of speculation that's inside a piece of gossip that's inside a bloody "Predictions for 2006" article.
Which isn't to say that it can't be true. But it feels like someone heard the phrase "Google OS" [kottke.org] and made up a rumor without knowing what the phrase meant.
Low cost? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:For non-Article readers... (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, the mention of a "google box" that will move music and video between the PC and TV seems like it really came out of left field....
Irrensponsible Tabloid Journalism on Slashdot? (Score:4, Insightful)
Or so goes the "logic."
Re:Low cost? (Score:5, Insightful)
Really, a Windows licence isn't the major part of the cost of a new PC.
The lower the cost of the PC the higher the proportion of the cost is the OS.
So just using their own OS (with all the development costs) isn't going to save a huge amount of money per unit sold.
It's not nothing either. Dollars matter in high volume products.
Plus the strategic advantage of not adding to the revenue stream of a major competitor.
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Are you thinking long term? Just because a TCO may be good in the short term doesn't mean it's good in the long term.
Re:Low cost? (Score:5, Insightful)
Really? In an industry where saving 2% can mean the difference between life and death? I think the MS tax is going to be a minimum 5% (and an obscene maximum if you fail to negotiate a good deal)
OEMs get the best license they can negotiate - it might be good if you're Dell - and don't compete in any space MS wants to own, but I doubt google is going to get the same deal from MS are they?
Re:Misleading (Score:3, Insightful)
It is only a rumor at this point.
It's not a rumor. It's a prediction, a not unreasonable prediction.
If Google wants to stop cross-subsidising it's major competitor it could do worse than have its own PC where much of the utility of the PC is in Google's web presence.
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The majority of modern marketing is nothing more than an arms race to get mind share. Everybody loses except the parasitic marketing "industry".
Re:Exercise for the reader (Score:2, Insightful)
the average user has never even heard of unix. however you would be hard pressed to find an internet user not familiar with google. branding goes a long way...and microsoft is know to be a security risk round the internet.....google has a good internet rep.
so they would choose it over any other *nix because they wouldn't know that they were choosing over anything. if this came out more people will hear of it than linux could hope to dream of
Re:Irony (Score:5, Insightful)
Can't help but feed the trolls this morning!
Microsoft are not considedered evil for branching into other areas of business. They're evil because they illegally utilized their dominance in one area to extend their business into other areas, stifling competition and therefore harming consumers.
Tell me how Google are illegally utilizing their dominance in search to extend into other areas? Tell me how Google have stifled competition.
Until them I don't see them 'following' MS at all.
Re:Low cost? (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh my. (Score:3, Insightful)
There are so few companies out there that could even dream of competing with Microsoft in the OS area... but, in my mind, Google is one of them. Note how I have absolutely no evidence to back up this opinion... Google doesn't sell gadgets, and they don't really even sell software... but the one thing they do seem to do is succeed. I have a sort of blind faith in Google at this point.
Of course, trying their own OS might be Google's Russia... Napolean and Hitler both were doing pretty well until they went for Moscow... and going head to head with MS might just be the one thing Google can't do.
All rumors, agreed. But it makes me feel all funny, like when we used to climb the rope in gym class.
Great way to get the same reputation as MS (Score:4, Insightful)
Wal-Mart Bad, Google Good... oh dear, isn't it getting complicated!
Apart from that, I think Google would be mad to go the PC route. For a start, the money was never in the hardware. Also, I can't think of a better way to lose goodwill than to start selling budget PCs to the least technically literate segment of the PC-buying population and then failing to provide premium support.
Yes yes, there's Apple, but Apple don't generally do bargain basement prices. If you make an enormous margin on the hardware, you may be able to afford to keep your customers happy, even when they are clueless idiots. No-one, not even Google, will be able to do that on a $200 sale price.
Re:Google an accessory to Walmart's evil? (Score:5, Insightful)
There are more people in MS who are under the spell of Google, than even these 'analysts': Look at Robert Scoble and Dare Obasanjo - tho' the latter seems to actually understand market sense. These ideas float out, with a hope of provoking an MS response that ends up diffusing effort.
Remember, Bear-Stearns and other investment analysts were the most gullible of the participants in dot-com hype. I was a "fly on the wall" in analyst's calls at Bear Stearns, at Reynolds and at Deloitte. They all smoked the same crack that MCI was pushing about 'Net expansion.
At investment and professional services firms, you have a crew of youngsters who cut their professional teeth on the Internet bubble. This is the baseline for their experience. They are now all out to find the next big thing - and they hope it's Google. Like Yahoo in '97, with profitability as the latest 'secret sauce'.
From monitoring this thread, you would think that Google posed as serious a challenge to Microsoft as AMD does to Intel in the microprocessor market.
It's B.S. Google is good at what they do and are looking to create the kind of continuing growth that justifies the absurd valuation the analysts have bestowed upon them. The only real concern for Microsoft is that the natural area for Google's expansion is a segment that we have also identified for growth.
Re:Probably Tweaked Linux or FreeBSD (Score:3, Insightful)
If they do, it won't be visible on the surface. They're unlikely to take Microsoft head-on in the general purpose computing market.
Instead, I'd expect an appliance-like computer that does the basics (office stuff, music, videos etc) so simply and well it'll seem groundbreaking - like the first Palm Pilots - with the Google search heavily featured as the shell. Internet applications will be seamless with google's portal presence.
It would be nice if Linux was there at the core, and us geeks still had access to it, but it's not likely to be a priority.
I just cannot see this happening (Score:3, Insightful)
No leaks? (Score:4, Insightful)
Has much as I love my geek brethren... I was in disbelief before I even clicked the article.
Re:Walmart-Google PC (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Speculation, but an interesting thought (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Irony (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Exercise for the reader (Score:3, Insightful)
All pure speculation of course!!
Re:Irony (Score:1, Insightful)
Tell me how Google are illegally utilizing their dominance in search to extend into other areas? Tell me how Google have stifled competition.
But the decision with MSFT was made AFTER the fact. It's akin to driving down a road without a speed limit sign, and then having a cop tell you you were speeding because the speed limit has just been set to 45 MPH.
The courts could suddenly decide the market for search with subsidized ads was important, google ownded most of it, and bam, they were a monopoly. The next step would be to determine if they'd tried to expand into other areas illegally.
MSFT beat so many things in the court trial. The one thing they did lose was the fact that they didn't allow their icons/shortcuts to be removed. Not that they didn't allow other icons to be added...they just didn't allow theirs to be removed.
Re:Google an accessory to Walmart's evil? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think you have a case of urban elitism. while you weren't looking, computers have gone mainstream, because they just aren't that hard to deal with, either operating them or building them. it's a ho-hum skill now as in nothing special. Walmart even sells some upgrade parts on the shelf, meaning that people are savvy enough to open the box and replace components. Oh and Noes, being a computer user means you don't have to be a white collar urban dweller any longer.
This is 2006, not 1986 after all. Being a computer user by itself is no longer automatically leet, it's become as common as can be. It's a normal human endeavor, walmart sells whatever sells, that's all. Just because you (anyone you, just generally speasking) might shop at an all electronic store does not make you any more intelligent or capable that someone who shops at a walmart. You go where the deals are in todays world, end of story. I personally don't like walmart from a socio/economic model, but I won't deny that they carry a wide range of products at various pricing levels, and cater to most of the consumer population out there. Probably over 90% of people who shop will hit a walmart at least once in awhile, street people to millionaires.
yes it can. (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes, I've seen a few.
$200+freeOS=$200
$200+WindozeTax>=$250
Brand power (Score:3, Insightful)
Put them in a pretty white box with a bright GoOgLe logo, and you have the makings of something very powerful.
People aren't buying a web terminal or an interface, they're buying a gateway to use Google.
If it turns out to be true, it's a potentially brilliant move for Google. How does Google make all those megabucks? Advertising. They made it work, bigtime. What's advertising about? Eyeballs. Google is brilliant for putting the -right- eyeballs with the -right- ads.
This could be the first thing with the -opportunity- to seriously hurt Microsoft since Navagator and Java.
Re:Google an accessory to Walmart's evil? (Score:5, Insightful)
Winston Smith's TV was worrisome because it contained a camera - an active monitoring device - as opposed to a wiretap - a passive monitoring device, which only forwards what goes through the wire. This doesn't contain a camera, and there's no logic in saying it couldn't be turned off.
Would you hold back technology in the worry it could be used for evil ends? Everything can be perverted. Even the clubs that the cavemen used, the first tools in human society, could have been used to kill other humans.
You should be glad you weren't around to say "zomg Big Brother!" when DARPA was proposing the Internet. Because today, you're posting on it, even though your posts are being tracked.
Re:Google an accessory to Walmart's evil? (Score:3, Insightful)
People who are near the Walmarts full of "human trash" customers tend to get a skewed impression of the stores. While people near the Walmarts with "decent folk" customers also get a differently skewed impression. Which one is more prevalent? I'm really not sure.
Re:Google branded Windows? (Score:3, Insightful)
It hasn't been discussed for a reason - its dumb as shit. Walmart already sells winblows. Why let google subsidize it when they can subsidize it themselves and have themselves as the home page, etc., if its such a money-maker?
Most people know how to change their home page nowadays, or if they're running Win$hit, some drive-by malware will already have changed it for them.
Re:Google branded Windows? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Google an accessory to Walmart's evil? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yet here you are...
The PC is dead! (Score:3, Insightful)
And just as Apple has been able, to some degree, increase awareness and movement to their platform with the iPod, others can do the same. Imagine if you will a low-cost device (explicitly NOT called a PC) that hooked up to your HDTV monitor and allowed you to browse [open source browser] and search the web [Google Search], get e-mail [GMail], browse and organize photos [Picasa], chat via text or voice[Google Talk], shop online [Froogle], and play DVDs and act as the tuner for your HDTV monitor. Hell, add in a little AJAX, and you can do simple word processing and other PC-like actions. Yes, those are all the things that a PC can do now, but by calling it something else, people's expectations would be different. Sell it for something like $299 MSRP or less, and all of those folks who've spent $999 to $2,999 and up on large HDTVs will be thinking it's the ultimate accessory. Add in the ability to organize and play music [think something like Picasa for audio files]and play games, and you've got something that could generate huge revenues for Google.
I'm not saying this is something Google is actually going to do, but while 95% of computer users have Windows, it also a well known fact that most only use about 5% of the features their PCs are capable of providing. The field is wide open to have someone address that need by providing a less complicated and thus more reliable device. Based on Linux and with many net-hosted applications, these devices would also be less vulnerable to viruses and spyware, increasing the reliability even more.
Re:Google branded Windows? (Score:5, Insightful)
Gee, where have you been? "Win$hit" is perfectly acceptable - google says so. 48,100,000 hits for "Win$hit".
Or you can http://www.googlefight.com/index.php?lang=en_GB&wo rd1=win%24hit&word2=winblows [googlefight.com] googlefight
That's several hundred to 1 in favour of Win$hit.
It's not a bug - its a feature :-)
Re:Google an accessory to Walmart's evil? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Google an accessory to Walmart's evil? (Score:3, Insightful)
I think you think too highly of CD-Rom software. This isn't 1996 anymore. Chances are if they can't get flash working on this systems then its more cost effective to have kids go to Nickkids.com or wherever you can play Blues clues for free.
Also, if parents already have the software, it means they have a computer that the software already runs on which makes it a moot point if the new computer runs it. The second scenario in which the parents buy the software at the store at the time the computer is bought, which is less likley because chances are they already bundled stuff and after $200 in the wallet punch a $50 software title isn't that pretty.
If of course google markets it as a "no-software" required type of deal in which everything you could really need could be provided by google by asking it "Play Dora game" in the search engine and you are prompted by whatever flash game instantly. Hell... Parents won't have to go to the store anymore to buy old cd roms.
Re:No leaks? (Score:4, Insightful)
Umm... if the Google box is a thin client, there's not going to be a "software package" to leak. It'd probably be running a small footprint version of a highly customized Firefox browser over a streamlined linux kernal. And I suspect that no one would find anything interesting about a leaked copy of Firefox.
Honestly, people are missing the boat here. In a web-centric world, the OS becomes relatively trivial, more like a display and interface driver system. If everything "in the machine" is stored on Google servers, and the "software" is little more than pages served from a host you don't need much on the client end -- a single set of display and video drivers (all of the Google cubes will be the same) and something to drive the interface ports. No more.
Re:Irony (Score:3, Insightful)
God - that is really a stupid comment.
1) Slashdot is a collection of individuals - not a hive mind, no matter what you'd like to think.
2) I don't think I've ever commented upon a
3) I consider Microsoft to be immoral in every way that I said they were illegal in my previous quote - here you go: (spelling mistakes and all)For the record - I do think Google are acting immorally in China - but that has nothing to do with what I or the person I was replying to were talking about.
Re:Google an accessory to Walmart's evil? (Score:3, Insightful)