My prediction is that Google will not be able to beat Microsoft, and it doesn't help that they are smart or rich.
IMHO, their strategy to making OS irrelevant by having everything run from Chrome OS might not succeed in the end.
Just one example: Some time ago, I wanted to become more independent from MS and store my files online, so I started to use Google Docs. It's quite usable for home use, but currently, I switched back to my old Office 2000, with the difference that my files are not only on my harddisk, but I share them on the cloud with Live Mesh. This is a some kind of foreplay for the next year, when MS will come with Office 2010 and also Online office. So MS will have both the native windows client and the online application, while Google has only the later. I really don't see how they can compete here.
The danger for Google lies in the fact, that all their online assets are copy-able, and MS are slowly becoming able to achieve that.
But to win this fight, all Google has to do is to be better able to respond to customer needs than Microsoft. Maybe you're right, and they're going to lose. Customers stand a good chance of winning either way, though.
The difference is that the feedback loop for Microsoft for, say, Excel is that they want to sell 50,000-seat site licenses to accounting firms and will do what they need to do technologically and commercially in order to do that. As an aside, Excel becomes a superset of what other users need. The feedback loop for Google's spreadsheet is... what?
Remember Google's users are not its customers, they're its product.
IMHO, their strategy to making OS irrelevant by having everything run from Chrome OS might not succeed in the end.
Just one example: Some time ago, I wanted to become more independent from MS and store my files online, so I started to use Google Docs. It's quite usable for home use, but currently, I switched back to my old Office 2000, with the difference that my files are not only on my harddisk, but I share them on the cloud with Live Mesh. This is a some kind of foreplay for the next year, when MS will come with Office 2010 and also Online office. So MS will have both the native windows client and the online application, while Google has only the later. I really don't see how they can compete here.
The danger for Google lies in the fact, that all their online assets are copy-able, and MS are slowly becoming able to achieve that.