Google to ditch Windows

[aidanjt]

It's been rumoured by the Financial Times, that Google is planning to phase out Microsoft Windows from their internal infrastructure, citing security concerns as the primary motivator, following the Chinese attacks.

A Microsoft employee was quick to jump on the FT article and defend Microsoft's security creds (or lack thereof), claiming that they're "doing a better job making our products more secure than anyone else".

This may prove interesting.

[TheAnimus]

In other news google makes public the timelime for crome OS!

[jim]

Quite.

Blatant publicity stunt.

[aidanjt]

There's definitely a marketing angle here for Google. But Microsoft have always been lacking in the security department, and they've been too quick to bolt on 'security software' to patch up holes rather than fix them.

Hopefully this will give Microsoft the kick in the arse they need to do things properly.

[matty-hodgson]

Their products still sell by the tonne though, they're still one of the biggest companies in the world and they're still worth a hell of a lot of money, why would they change what they're doing?

[aidanjt]

why would they change what they're doing?

Because Google is also a market leader, if it's shown that a corporation can exist without Microsoft software, more corporations will start wondering if they can do without as well.

[Phage]

A browser-based OS in a corporate environment ? Can't see it unless we're going back to terminals.

[usxhe190]

It's Google. It's promotion. I do think MS is doing their point on security.

[scaryjim]

A browser-based OS in a corporate environment ? Can't see it unless we're going back to terminals.

For general productivity Google probably could, although they'll probably still need plenty of standard workstations for development etc. But I believe we'll see corporate adoption of thin clients / terminals growing with SOAS and cloud-based computing.

The difference is that instead of dumb terminals wired to a mainframe, you have smart terminals connecting to cloud software. It's a model that could work well - and lower TCO - for a lot of companies: most banks now running centralised Java-based software that could easily work in a cloud environment, for instance.

It would also make it much easier to enable homeworking / teleworking, and there's several studies showing that homeworking schemes increase productivity and reduce absenteeism, again lowering TCO...

[lodore]

surely its easier to exploit macs?
you got imac,mac mini,mac pro and xserve and maybe a few generations of that.
most of ranges use the same hardware.
tight integration may be reliable and easy to program for but it also makes it easier to exploit.

[TheAnimus]

There's definitely a marketing angle here for Google. But Microsoft have always been lacking in the security department, and they've been too quick to bolt on 'security software' to patch up holes rather than fix them.

Hopefully this will give Microsoft the kick in the arse they need to do things properly.

I think its fair to say they do, they do a hell of a lot more than apple, with out of the box ASLR, DEP, UAC.

'Protected Mode' in IE is very good idea.

The downside is they are still facilitating or sometimes even suggesting the 'old way' of doing things, sure run as admin, uac will protect you etc.

There aren't any holes really, the design of the NT kernel is lovely even when down and dirty in its innards.

No system is perfect, but if you reduce the clients to dumb terminals its probably a lot easier to keep them cleaner.

[Phage]

For general productivity Google probably could, although they'll probably still need plenty of standard workstations for development etc. But I believe we'll see corporate adoption of thin clients / terminals growing with SOAS and cloud-based computing.

The difference is that instead of dumb terminals wired to a mainframe, you have smart terminals connecting to cloud software. It's a model that could work well - and lower TCO - for a lot of companies: most banks now running centralised Java-based software that could easily work in a cloud environment, for instance.

It would also make it much easier to enable homeworking / teleworking, and there's several studies showing that homeworking schemes increase productivity and reduce absenteeism, again lowering TCO...

Oh, I completely agree. It's the required cultural change and the necessary re-training of staff that would make this harder. There have been a couple of cloud fails that make many corporates quite nervous. An internal cloud on a SOAS model I could definitely see working.

[Fraz]

A browser-based OS in a corporate environment ? Can't see it unless we're going back to terminals.

Back to terminals? Some of us never left them...

[jim]

surely its easier to exploit macs?
you got imac,mac mini,mac pro and xserve and maybe a few generations of that.
most of ranges use the same hardware.
tight integration may be reliable and easy to program for but it also makes it easier to exploit.

As if that's relevant

[dangel]

I'm sure Chrome will dominate the corporate sector - just as gmail and google apps do today.

Oh.

[TheAnimus]

Thats right, give all your customer data away to someone else to 'look after' for you.

As much as I like the economics of the cloud, I think it would take the better part of a decade just to get the legal signoff to house the data outside certain geographic offices...

But for a small business, its probably easier for many to have google's data policy as their own, to have an OS that requires no admin work (yeh, like that will be the case!)