By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

For Google to emerge as a true contender in just the field of netbook operating systems as soon as 2011 will require it to have smoothly and swiftly cleared an immense obstacle course first. But just the fact that Google will make the attempt will underscore a hard new reality facing Microsoft, one which my friend Carmi Levy pointed out on Monday: The rules of the game for operating systems and applications are changing rapidly, and their underlying principles are being rewritten.

Now, we can adopt Google's quaint little prophecy and sing praises -- perhaps to the tune of "It's a Small World After All" or, if you prefer to go really over the top, "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" -- to the notion that "The Web is now the platform." In our hearts, we may hope for that to be true; in our minds, we all know that's rubbish, holding as much water as Intel's and Microsoft's 1980s notion that x86 architecture "is the platform." There is no single platform for online applications, and whether there ever will be is still a matter of some debate. At this rate, it's not happening.

But whoever holds the key to the applications that people want to use, will hold title to "the platform" that developers will support; and if that key should change hands, developers will follow. Right now, Google does not hold that key; and as far as applications are concerned -- functional tools that people and businesses want to use every day and trust with their livelihoods -- it actually hasn't been getting any closer at all to attaining that goal.

The killer app remains the killer

Microsoft's stronghold in software today rests on two pillars: the prominence of Windows and the ubiquity of Office. Windows is the strongest operating system for x86 systems today. But the principal reason for that is because businesses prefer Office applications. The secondary reason is because more businesses' custom apps are written for Windows, and thus their logic is based on Windows databases; but even now, the reason businesses still choose Windows as their custom apps platform is because they plan to also use Office. The third reason is because Windows Server is strong in providing Exchange and SharePoint services, but even those are more dependent upon Outlook, Word, and Excel as time goes on -- everything that follows merely supports the principal reason: Businesses prefer Office.

That's not just because of Office's reliability or even necessarily its quality (which has sometimes been a variable), but because of the colossal third-party support system in place for training its business users and supporting business' applications plans based around Office. It's still a very strong foundation that will not be toppled easily; what had appeared to be the best organized effort to dissolve Office's stronghold on business -- the attack on Microsoft's document standards -- has largely fallen apart after Microsoft's successful campaign to make ISO 29500 an international standard.

For Chrome to become successful as an operating system, it will need strong applications -- a counterpart to the boost that Office gives Windows. And right now, Google Apps are no contender to Office, despite the innovative platform on which they're based, and an even more innovative platform being developed for them. Google will need applications that are well supported, that businesses will adopt and trust, and that will also play equally on Linux, Mac, and Windows. Until it can play that trump card, Chrome will be, from the perspective of Windows users, the #3 or #4 Web browser.

Making the operating system not matter

Yet Google has made some progress in attaining one principal goal: specifically separating "the platform" from the operating system. This was Sun Microsystems' original goal: to make it feasible for developers to address a broader base of users than any single operating system would claim for itself. It's still a smart idea, making it possible to not have to publish "for Windows" or "for Mac." Google's revision of this idea is to set up "Web standards" as the basis for its platform, to make good with regulators who are easily placated by promises of "openness" and "interoperability."

But let's be honest: Google's objective is to create a way for developers to build "for Chrome," and have their apps run on Linux, Mac, and Windows. Whether Chrome is the OS on the client system or not, Google would provide users with as much intermediate code as is necessary -- as small as a runtime or a Web browser, or as large as a Linux environment -- to provide its Web apps with platform parity.

You can just see the logos now, can't you: "Works with Chrome OS." "Chrome-Ready."

Here's the real problem: The conditions which made it possible for Google to make this breakaway attempt to attack Microsoft, indicate that the operating system is less important as a foundation for "the platform." But for Google to be a contender, it has to make its operating system more important -- it has to convince users that because the OS doesn't matter much anymore, Chrome OS matters. It has to advance "the platform" to such a status that consumers and business purchasers will pay less attention to the client OS, even though that's part of the baggage that may come with Chrome.

Next: Time to rethink Windows and Office...

Time to rethink Windows and Office

Despite the odds against Google Chrome OS, Microsoft's two-pillar strategy for maintaining its software stronghold no longer appears indestructible going into the next decade.

For now, Windows 7 fulfills a near-term objective for Microsoft: to help wipe clean from users' minds the marketing mistake that was Vista, and to refocus their attention on the company's strengths: applications that users want, respectable performance, and despite all effective counter-marketing by competitors, decent system security.

"Windows 8" cannot be a near-term fix, if there should even be a "Windows 8." The public is starting to question the need for an operating system designed to manage a myriad of hardware components that many users don't even have. Windows remains a monolithic remnant of 1980s technology, in an era when any company with resources and wherewithal that dared to start over from scratch could create a wholly new OS architecture that assembles itself, using the Web, to fit precisely the requirements of the computer that's using it at that time. A rethought Windows or other x86 operating system would not have to support technology that isn't there, especially if it isn't even being produced any more.

Likewise, in an era where software is becoming more "componentized," and Web applications can indeed demonstrate that small nuggets of functionality can be put to use in a comprehensive context, the era of Office's giant applications monstrosities does seem antiquated. It does seem at times that the only real purpose Microsoft has for prolonging this architecture is because that's the only way it knows how to monetize its investment in client apps -- it doesn't know another business model, and it can't seem to make one.

As quad-core and six-core and soon eight-core processors don't seem to be making everyday work all that much faster for consumers, Microsoft's value propositions for Windows and Office make less and less sense. It can't even adequately explain to consumers why "Ultimate" is ultimate; and it can't make the case for Internet Explorer 8's exclusive features without, quite literally, barfing. The proverbial handwriting has long since jumped off of Steve Ballmer's wall, and is now all over his face. After Windows 7 settles in, it's time for a huge change in Windows and Office. Huge.

Who's the dominant player now?

The facts that Internet Explorer did not fulfill Microsoft's objective of leveraging its existing pillars to conquer the Web, and that .NET has not fulfilled its objective of extending Microsoft's development platform reach firmly beyond Windows, are clear indications that the leverage strategy that worked for Microsoft in the 1990s against Netscape has pretty much run its course. But Google will attempt its own leverage strategy -- using its dominance on the Web to blast its software platform onto every PC, everywhere, all the time.

The irony of regulators who had clamped down so severely on Microsoft's misbehaviors in tying the browser to the operating system, allowing Google to attempt pretty much the same play -- tying the operating system to the browser -- is not only ripe for exploitation but also pretty likely. The European Commission officially declined Betanews' request for comment on this issue this afternoon. Google, the champion of openness and an "observer" in previous EC actions against Microsoft, may very well get a free pass on this move.

But Europe is not the world. Asian regulators, especially South Korea's Free Trade Commission, are paying closer attention to companies that use "open standards" as a leveraging tool for their own private interests. And in the US, which had given Microsoft a free pass throughout the Bush Administration, the new Justice Dept. antitrust chief is Christine Varney, the outspoken opponent of Microsoft's anti-Netscape behavior during the height of the first browser wars. The merest hint of funny business will trip this lady's alarm bells, and we will all hear the wave of discontent.

Meanwhile, if Microsoft does change Windows -- if it makes the huge platform changes that are required for it to make a fresh and renewed value proposition for its key software brands -- it seems almost foolish to think that its competitors would not use legal resources including Ms. Varney to cry foul. When the company changed the architecture of Vista's kernel to disallow certain classes of exploits, security companies complained because that, in turn, disallowed their software from vanquishing that class of exploits. It was the silliest complaint ever, but legislators listened. Magnify that prototype to the size and scope of remaking Windows in an image that competitors can't use to their advantage, and therein lay the danger for Microsoft.

At this point, there appear to be fewer choices for Microsoft moving into 2010 and beyond than to make big moves to reconfigure the platform from top to bottom, in a way which may make Chrome and Firefox and quite a lot of other stuff outmoded and ineffective. When that happens, Google will probably make use of its newfound skill at wooing the hearts of legislators and regulators, pleading that such a move will dis-enable its carefully laid plans to innocently tie the operating system to the Web browser.

This is a battle that will be played out in many courts. That fact alone favors one player, the only one that has ever been successful playing all courts at once in a multi-front war: Microsoft. It could still be a very bloody battle. And anyone who truly believes this is about "openness," as my colleague Jerry Pournelle would say, is drinking the wrong brand of Kool-Aid.