Chrome O/S: buying what you need …
p2pnet news view Advertising | P2P:- Net advertising company Google wants to foist its very own Chrome operating system on the world.
But, “we already have Linux, a completely free, no-strings-attached alternative to Steve and the Boyz,” p2pnet said yesterday. “Then there`s Apple, with all kinds of strings. And there`s a huge collection of other lesser known operating systems …”
However, there’s no stopping Eric and the Boyz once they get an idea in their heads. So …
Meanwhile, Bob Lefsetz, author of the famed Lefsetz Letter, isn’t impressed.
“I’m not excited about this,” he writes. “I’m quite happy with OS X. I’m not one of the minions tearing their hair out, bitching about Vista. But as a business story, this is fascinating,” he states, going on »»»
You see Microsoft is married to an old business model. They make their money selling Windows and Office. What if these are suddenly free?
This is exactly what happened to the record companies. They were humming along, making beaucoup bucks in the nineties selling overpriced CDs with one good track, and Napster came along and ruined the business model.
How did the labels respond? By trying to keep the future from happening, then suing those desirous of living in the future, then blaming the artists and insisting they hand over 360 degrees of rights for almost nothing in return. Their only hope of survival with any power was to jump ahead of the curve, retool their business for what didn’t yet exist.
But there are no visionaries at major labels.
Microsoft has got money. But they’ve got no innovation. It’s kind of like Detroit. Mercedes-Benz came up with all kinds of safety initiatives, Honda met fuel standards way in advance and Detroit said both were impossible and booked the profits, only changing when forced to by the government and consumers. But it was too late. After decades of extracting cash but failing to reinvest it, the Detroit companies failed themselves. Microsoft has beaten back challengers in the past, but can they beat back a company as rich as Google?
Don’t talk to me about Windows Mobile. That’s in a death spiral. Don’t talk to me about Bing, that’s like debating the merits of Subaru. All the cash is coming from Windows and Office. If Google makes them free…
And they’re probably going to be free. When connections are fast enough and you can do everything you want online. Look at it this way. Road warriors oftentimes don’t even travel with a laptop anymore, an iPhone or a BlackBerry is enough.
Do you really need all those apps, all that crapware on a large, overpriced piece of junk? Or should you be able to just pay for what you want? Kind of like in the music business. On iTunes, you can buy just what you want, and the labels hate this! Look at this from a consumer viewpoint. Do you want all those apps that come on your Windows computer? Wouldn’t you like to be able to buy just what you need? Why not?
The labels are still focused on selling more than you need. Instead of creating products so desirable you want more.
The music business has been turned on its head. And everybody who had any power before is bitching. Music is free! Damn those pirates! Let’s go back to the twentieth century!
That’s a worthless discussion. Equivalent to telling people to go back to typewriters and the horse and buggy. Not only do you need to accept the present, you’ve got to view the future!
The primary issue facing the purveyors of music today is attention. How do you get people to pay attention, and keep paying attention?
One way is the major label way, spend a fortune to get radio airplay and TV exposure. But both of those are declining markets. And you’re still competing against a plethora of interests, and not only music. Whatever it takes to get people hooked, you should consider. Free music is a great strategy because people only bond to acts if they hear the tunes. Making it feel like free is also a good strategy. Spotify works because it’s convenient! All the tunes in one place! I’m not saying you can’t charge for music, but charging comes last!
Getting people hooked comes first.
And that’s extremely difficult these days.
Used to be you had three TV networks and just a few local radio stations. Now you’ve got 500 TV channels and Internet radio and iPods. Doesn’t a new world require a new strategy?
If a company as large and powerful as Microsoft, a veritable monopoly, can be challenged by what’s coming, its very existence called into question because it is not prepared for the future, is it any wonder that the zit on the ass of the economy known as the music business can be decimated?
The good news is it will be reincarnated. Just with a different business model. That’s what’s going on now. Don’t bitch and moan, try and get ahead of the customer and entice him when he finally reaches you. Providing more, not less. He doesn’t want to rip you off, he wants to give you all his money. But only if he wants what you’re purveying, and exactly what you’re purveying.
Does anybody salivate over the new edition of Windows or Office?
Only if they’re frustrated with the crappy old one that is making them tear their hair out.
“Once you start protecting what you’ve got, trying to deny the future, keeping people locked into old ways, you’re on the way to decline,” Lefset warns.
“Remember this.”
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi
p2pnet – Google Chrome Operating System, July 9, 2009
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July 10th, 2009 at 8:53 am
Damn good article. How do we get it mainstream?
July 10th, 2009 at 9:50 am
Good article, but yeah, it`s preaching to the choir here.
any way, I`m thinking that the “storing everything online” model poses some security/privacy and access issues. You`d be under the mercy of internet providers and external cables, hardware and software. What about bandwidth and “three strikes laws”? What if I cant connect to the internet for some reason (financial or random connection problems.)
I do realize that technology will advance, and that I am not being forced into “cloud computing”. I just thought it was worth mentioning. Maybe you can ease my mind.
July 10th, 2009 at 10:51 am
Jon, I consider myself to be a loyal P2PNet reader but I have to say I am getting rather tired of your endless criticism of Google. It is just a company like any other and like any other, is trying to make a profit, nothing more.
July 10th, 2009 at 11:07 am
@Loyal Reader
“The stakes are big enough that it’s worth the shot for Google. Google makes money through targeted advertising. The more they know about what you do, the better the ads you get will perform. If Google knows what you do at the operating system level, they can deliver you more specific advertising content.”
http://news.cnet.com/8301-19882_3-10283555-250.html
Think about it.
Cheers!
July 10th, 2009 at 11:58 am
@Jon:
Something else from that link you posted that reinforces this concern…
“Ask the Electronic Privacy Information Center what they think of Google’s privacy policies. (Hint: Not good). To give you a sense of how Google thinks – the original Chrome browser EULA gave Google the rights to everything you *created or viewed* inside their browser. Amazing what you can learn when you read those things. They evenutally changed this policy under public pressure, but that was their first choice??”
July 10th, 2009 at 12:25 pm
Thanks, DA.
I’d have no problem with Gargoyle if it was up-front and honest about what it’s doing and why, trying to enlist potential customers as reasonable people who’d be only too happy to be kept informed about what’s happening and who’s making it happen, perhaps buying whatever it is once they know the score
Instead, Gargle treats them as dupes who only deserve to be scammed.
Cheers!
July 10th, 2009 at 1:07 pm
Loyal:
“Trying to make a profit” is all well and good in the abstract.
It’s when you ask questions such as “how” those profits are made, that things become sticky.
I mean, sure, we’re all familiar with the ol’ standby used in manufacturing: scrimp on things like design and materials, make it flimsy in the extreme, with a warranty-period just slightly longer than the thing’s projected lifespan. Every one of those “cost-cutting” measures is explicitly designed to “make a profit” by maximizing the margin between costs and price (because ultimately, that’s all “profit” IS — the discrepancy between what it cost you, and what you sell it for. Elementary economics lesson over)
Or how about “name-brand” sneaker companies that pay their third-world (slave)labor-force a few cents per unit, and then turn around and sell each pair of shoes for 250 bucks? Makes great “economic” sense — after all, their profit-margin is absolutely huge. Pesky little issues like “outsourcing” destroying economies in the developing world, deliberate impoverishment of their own workforce, human-rights violations by corporate sweatshop-owners, improper disposal of toxic waste, etc. just get treated as “externalities” — somebody else’s problem. Why? Because actually bothering to address these issues would cut into the profit-margins, and we absolutely cannot have that, at any cost.
So pardon some of us if we don’t just view “profit” as an all-purpose excuse for ruining the world.
Bye now
July 10th, 2009 at 1:40 pm
@Henry.
And that
Cheers!