Google to fold ChromeOS into Android. Why is that not surprising?

ChromeOS - Smooth, sleek, stable, safe, sexy and of course affordable! You can go adding adjectives to describe that and still probably you may be run out of words to describe it. So, Google deciding to fold it up into Android, did you really see that coming? Google may have denied it officially but it would not have been surprising if it did fold the OS into Android. 

Well, somewhere at the end of 2008 the world was celebrating the birth of a new OS from the 'people's brand' - Google. The creator of the Search engine, the innovator of the Social Media and the very handy "Google Talk". So, it was certainly another Operating System that the world probably anticipated would be smooth, sleek, stable.... and free! Yeah, Free! However, that "Free" word sent chills up the spine of Microsoft! This OS company was probably never planning to enter the cloud market back then because obviously that wouldn't have fed the sales of their flag ship product - The Windows!. 

Apparently just a little earlier to that announcement Microsoft had announced the death of a couple of things associated with the Live search. People thought, they were shutting down the supposedly 'failed' Search Engine business but after Google's disclosure, Microsoft suddenly pulled an ace up its sleeve. The very next month we knew Microsoft launched Office Web at Las Vegas and in another quarter or two, Steve Ballmer announced the birth of Bing - that too in beta! And that bing in Beta was ad free, interactive search engine and was smooth, sleek, stable, sturdy and effective and could have clearly been an excellent assassin of any good Search Engine. Infact I remember, the Bing video search looked like it was probably stolen from the future back then. Even till date, Google does not support it that way. That was probably Microsofts signal to Google saying - You do more OS we do more Search Engine - You talk about coming into my business I talk about coming into yours with my revenues and resources. And probably Google back then was probably in a fraction of Microsoft financially. ChromeOS ad's took a hit! Google lowered the volumes on their campaigns and subtly would have thought of folding that into Android. Clever! Nothing to be surprised. 

Well, nicely played Microsoft! I think that is a very good strategy from MS - the king! They keep on building products that the world feel won't last longer in the game or may be may have been created for the sake of creating but the right competitors for whom that has been created know its better to play safe with the king by not stepping on his tail. Zune player is another excellent example - We all know what it was and what it could have been. After all Toshiba manufactured it and the sound quality of the limited edition Zune was just a 'beware' signal to 'the one who should not be named' but is so obvious like an orange. Sadly on October 3, 2011, Microsoft announced the discontinuation of all Zune hardware. Later, the announcement was removed and a Zune Support Team member tweeted that the page was added to the website in error. Finally, despite previous denials, the original announcement of the Zune hardware's discontinuation was restored to the Zune Support site. RIP Steve Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011). Oh! But thats just a co-incidence.

No attack - just defense. The success mantra! 

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