“See you in hell, Windows.” That’s Google talking, according to a report in the Financial Times. (Not an exact quote, mind you.) The company is taking several steps to phase out the use of Microsoft’s operating system following the well-publicized China hacking situation. New employees are given the option of using a Mac or a Linux-based PC, and others are simply being switched over to Mac or Linux when the time is right. It’s not an official Google policy, but rather something that’s just being done.
You’ll recall that Google ran into some trouble with China earlier this year. Several of the company’s computers were “hacked,” and Google blames any number of China-based hackers. Were these hackers working on behalf of the Chinese government, or were they merely rogue hackers who happened to be based in China?
Google’s response—and this response apparently began in January—has been to move away from Windows. The company feels that Windows’ security situation isn’t quite good enough, so it’s better off moving to Mac or Linux. Mac OS X isn’t popular enough to be the target of nefarious, overseas hackers, and Linux is open source—any and all flaws are there for the community to investigate.
The China hacking was the last straw, so to speak. Google had been wanting to move to Google-based products for the longest time, so this incident served as the impetus to get things going.
Yup, that’s it.