Google Moving to Mac OS X

Or Linux. 'Linux is open source and we feel good about it. Microsoft we don't feel so good about.'

Get It Try It

Join the club, Googles. You don't feel good about Microsoft? Most people haven't felt good about it for ten years.

But the cat is out: Google have been moving from Windows ever since they got hacked by the Chinese. The wonder of it is that it took them so long - that with those supposed 'geniuses' they have there like Rob Pike and now Ken Thompson, it would have taken them so long. Search engine experts like Sergey Brin and Larry Page may be a little clueless when it comes to security, and CEOs like Eric Schmidt might be better suited to using an iPad - but the entire company? After all, it's Windows getting hacked all the time, nothing else, Chinese attack or no.

Anyway: they're finally moving away. Google, the biggest search company in the world. And moving away from Windows internally also means no effort expended to stay compatible with Windows. Remember that old trick Microsoft used to pull? Telling web surfers that websites were not accessible because they weren't running Windows? You can expect a bit of the same but in reverse today: Google won't work because people are running Windows. That's goign to be fun to watch.

Of course Microsoft have their (Chandler) Bing but seriously: who cares about Bing except Monica? No one. It's just another lacklustre, behind the times Microsoft product that's going to pick crumbs off the table, now officially relegated to the margins as the sun finally sets on Redmond.

New hires at Google are given the option of using a Mac or taking a Windows PC with a Linux installed. Which amounts to the same thing. A new hire opting for a Windows jalopy when Macs can already run Linux is a fool. Consequently most new hires are of course opting for Apple hardware. Apple are pulling in the apples.

'Windows is known for being more vulnerable to attacks by hackers and more susceptible to computer viruses than other operating systems', write FT.com in the understatement of the Millennium. They push their foot deeper in the gullet with the following:

'The greater number of attacks on Windows has much to do with its prevalence, which has made it a bigger target for attackers.'

The same old same old. David Gelles and Richard Waters writing for FT.com in San Francisco can be forgiven for their ignorance because, after all, they're only journalists and have NFC when it comes to IT or IT security.

The prevalence of Windows (with an 80% market share) is icing on the cake, but it's not the primary reason Windows is attacked so often and so easily. As any security guru has known and been screaming ALL ALONG.

FT.com also intimate the Googles were 'scared' by the Chinese attack into migrating from Windows. Again the wonder is how they could use that system for so long, isolated from the rest of the world and ignorant both of security news and of the most basic of system security essentials.

To the Googles' credit, there already was a move underway before the Chinese attack. But that was more informal - not so much an order as a gentle encouragement. Today the Googles need explicit approval from their CIO to run Windows. That's about as severe as things can get. And it's a welcome sign.

'I work for the Googles. Don't you dare claim Windows was my idea.'

See Also
Slashdot: Google Reportedly Ditching Windows
FT.com / Technology: Google ditch Windows on security concerns