Start-ups could hold key

SAN FRANCISCO: Silicon Valley start-ups, increasingly dropping Microsoft and turning to Web-based software, may be the crucial opening Google needs for its Chrome operating system.

Analysts and executives say Google, which unveiled the Chrome last week in a direct challenge to Microsoft's decades-old dominance of computer operating systems and business applications, will take years to get significant share of the market, but start-ups might be their way in.

A growing number of tech entrepreneurs argue that Microsoft's current software is out of date and inefficient because, unlike applications that run off the Web in a "cloud" environment, they run one copy per person at a time, rather than allowing multiple users to share information.

"In a business setting you never work on things alone," said Tien Tzuo, chief executive of Zuora, a company that sells software to facilitate billing online.

"The idea of sending a file back and forth is just archaic," said Tzuo. "Why not just give employees an inexpensive device that allows them to plug into the Internet?"

Microsoft's Windows nonetheless dominates. It remains the operating system software for about 95 percent of PCs, with more than 950 million copies running worldwide.

Key to Windows' success is that it offers the most applications and draws the most programmers. But start-ups, who thrive on low-cost efficiency, say Google's operating system - which will be free - offers superior applications.

Many have already switched to Web-based software such as Google Apps for everything from email to word processing.

David Sifry, the chief executive of Offbeat Guides, which provides personalized on-line guides for 30,000 destinations, said Google Apps allow him to travel without a computer because he can access all of his applications online.

Also, with operating system-based applications most companies would have to maintain, update, install, costing time and money, he said.

In contrast, Offbeat Guides contractors around the world collaborate online with the main office, Sifry said.

"The fact that I don't have to worry about doing technical support on their computers and software helps an extraordinary amount," he said. "Whenever Google does a bug fix it works on all of their systems, without us having to spend any effort."

Reuters

(China Daily 07/13/2009 page11)