Today during the press Q&A after the Chrome OS/Chromebook keynote, Google co-founder Sergey Brin joined the panel to share his thoughts on the new products and Google in general. Since the end goal of Chrome OS is clearly to end Windows dominance both in the workplace and the world in general, someone asked what percentage of Google employees still use Windows machines at work?
“I’d probably guess 20 percent,” Brin said in response. “But I’d have to get back to you,” he quickly qualified noting that he doesn’t have the exact numbers.
Still, unless his guess is way off, that’s equally surprising and impressive. Windows is, after all, still the OS that dominates the world — and businesses in particular. But apparently not Google — at all.
Brin also noted that of Windows users, there are very few not using Windows 7, the latest version of Microsoft’s OS. And he quickly followed up that there’s nothing inherently wrong with the OS, and that Windows 7 has some great security features.
Still, what Google is doing with Chrome OS is trying to rebuild the model from the ground up. This makes it not only a challenge to Microsoft, but anyone else in the OS space. “The complexity of managing your computers is torturing users out there. All of us,” Brin said. “That’s a flawed model fundamentally. Chromebooks are a new model,” he continued.
Brin also said that since Google will be deploying Chromebooks internally, he hopes that a year from now, there will only be a small percentage of Googlers not working on the devices.
Google provides search and advertising services, which together aim to organize and monetize the world’s information. In addition to its dominant search engine, it offers a plethora of online tools and platforms including: Gmail, Maps, YouTube, and Google+, the company’s extension into the social space. Most of its Web-based products are free, funded by Google’s highly integrated online advertising platforms AdWords and AdSense. Google promotes the idea that advertising should be highly targeted and relevant to users thus providing...
Sergey Brin. a native of Moscow, received a bachelor of science degree with honors in mathematics and computer science from the University of Maryland at College Park. He is currently on leave from the Ph.D. program in computer science at Stanford University, where he received his master’s degree. Sergey is a recipient of a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship as well as an honorary MBA from Instituto de Empresa. At Stanford, he met Larry Page and worked on the...
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