Google to launch its own operating system

The T-Mobile G1 Android-powered phone, the first cell phone with the operating system designed by Google Inc.

Google has announced plans for a personal computer operating system on its official blog. This will be another clash between the Internet search king and software giant Microsoft.

Chrome was launched in September but has failed to enjoy the spectacular success of Google's search engine. This was noted in the blog when the company stated that ‘the operating systems that browsers (Chrome) run on were designed in an era where there was no web’ thus the operating system is dubbed a ‘natural extension of Google Chrome.’

The browser has captured just a tiny share of a market dominated by Microsoft's Internet Explorer. Microsoft's new search engine Bing was launched in a bid to hit back at Google's gains in the search market, but still lags behind its rival. Web analytics firm StatCounter said last week that Bing had carved out an 8.23 percent share of the US search market in June. By contrast, however, Google continued to dominate the search market with a huge 78.48 percent share last month.

Google already has an operating system - Android.

While Android is only used for mobile phones at the moment, the open-source operating software with Internet capabilities has showcased Google's obvious interest in expanding beyond its search engine base. However, the blog stressed that Android and the upcoming Chrome OS were different but also acknowledged that ‘there are areas where Google Chrome OS and Android will overlap.’

The move is "our attempt to re-think what operating systems should be," Google said in a statement posted late Tuesday.

US telecom carrier giant T-Mobile said last month the latest version of a touch-screen smartphone featuring Android would be available in August. It is being seen as Google's answer in the highly competitive smartphone market to the newly released Apple iPhone 3GS, the Palm Pre and the latest Blackberrys.

Microsoft preps Windows 7 release

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A release candidate of Windows 7, the next major release of the world's most popular operating system, goes public in trial form in the next week.

Microsoft is hoping it can avoid the negative press that surrounded the launch of Vista, the last major Windows release, almost three years ago.

Windows 7 has been designed to be compatible with Vista so users do not have to invest in new hardware.

A commercial release of Windows 7 is expected in the next nine months.

A test version of Windows 7 will be available to developers from Thursday, while the public can try it out from 5 May.

John Curran, Microsoft UK's director, Windows Client Group, told BBC News that "shortfalls" in the Vista release had caused problems for some users.

"There were challenges on hardware and application compatibility with Vista in the first couple of months - and that has left a little bit of an aftertaste for a segment of people."

When Vista was launched many users expressed frustration that the operating system did not work with all types of existing hardware and peripherals, or programs used commonly on PCs.

And a Vista compatibility programme for hardware proved to be confusing and, in some cases, somewhat misleading.

Mr Curran said Microsoft had "learned lessons" and had been working with partner developers to ensure the same mistakes would not be repeated.

Windows 7 will also have "comparable system requirements" to Vista, which should mean that if your PC is capable of running Vista it will also run the new version.

Negative

Mr Curran said Vista had proved to be a success for Microsoft, despite the negative press that surrounds the operating system.

"Vista is the fastest selling operating system of all time and, in percentage terms, enterprise moved to Vista faster than it did to XP [an earlier version of Windows]," he said.

He said satisfaction surveys for Vista showed 90% of people were either satisfied or very satisfied and 85-90% would recommend it to a friend.

The exact timing will be based on quality John Curran, Microsoft

Microsoft embarked on a major advertising and marketing mission to improve the image of Vista after the muted reaction around its "The Wow starts now" campaign.

While Vista was released five months after the release candidate was made available, Mr Curran said Windows 7 would only be released when it is ready.

Bottom line

"Obviously in these times everybody is keeping an eye on the bottom line, but we are certainly taking a longer-term perspective here and always have done with Windows franchise.

"The timeline stated all along is that we are targeting Windows 7 within three years of of the launch of Vista and that would be the end of January 2010.

"We feel quite confident we are on trajectory that will deliver on that promise. But the exact timing will be based on quality."

Windows 7 promises a major usability improvement on Vista, and a simplification of security measures which caused frustration for many users.

Mr Curran said Windows 7 would build on the security improvements in Vista, which have seen a fall in the number of malware attacks and critical vulnerabilities identified.

Many beta testers of Windows 7 have reported that it is faster than Vista, especially in terms of start-up and shutdown sequence of the computer.

Mr Curran said that the Microsoft Windows team had been poring over every aspect of the operating system to make improvements.

"We were able to shave 400 milliseconds off the shutdown time by slightly trimming the WAV file shutdown music.

"It's indicative of really the level and detail and scrutiny on Windows 7."

A version of Windows 7 will also be available for netbooks, but with some caveats.

The Windows 7 Starter Edition will have limitations on how many applications can be used concurrently on a machine in order to preserve performance.

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8026736.stm