2011 has been a busy year for Search Engine giants Google and only now are their "domineering plans for the future" coming into view along the horizon!!

The paranoid conspiracy theorists among us might begin chirping in at the sudden apparent expansion of Google into the territory of many of the other major players in IT with their new Chromebook or perhaps their growing monopoly over the future of the internet with their new Google+ Social Network which threatens the hold of the Social Networking crown that giants Facebook & Twitter took away from the likes of Myspace, Bebo, etc, as some sort of attempt to conquer and control the world's online media.

Indeed there have been jokes a plenty comparing Social Networking, Microsoft's Cloud and Google's new Chrome OS system as being on a path that leads us down towards the infamous Skynet from the Terminator series of films.

Whilst that is a somewhat entertaining yet dire thought, I was captivated mainly by what Google had identified as a major selling point, and indeed a metaphorical carrot for clients as reported in ITNow Magazine - People can't afford Microsoft anymore.

For those of you who may not necessarily subscribe or indeed look at PC magazines beyond gamer, photoshop and web design mags, the covers of some of the bigger PC mags have been reporting on insider views and knowledge of Microsoft's next big OS update, Windows 8. Whilst many of the articles have been purely speculation by certain "experts" as to how Microsoft will move on with a future Operating System, Microsoft have in fact confirmed that they aim to roll out a new "Framework" every 18 - 24 months depending on region.

For many of you Windows 7 is something you've migrated to in the last 12 months, indeed I myself moved over to Microsoft's replacement of the abysmal Windows Vista OS (I personally missed the Vista bullet after having to deal with my fiancée's Vista Laptop) only last March, however Microsoft's flagship OS retailed back in October 2009 which, if you're going off Microsoft's mooted time scale, means Microsoft could well be entering a late phase of development and Windows 8 could indeed be ready for completion in October 2011.

Don't panic. This is not going to happen.

Even if Microsoft were to complete the operating system in 2011, beta testing, bug fixes and a hesitation to release another heavily criticised system with competition edging in from Apple, various Open Source systems and now Google Chrome OS would, one would hope, result in at least a mid 2012 release. Microsoft are rumoured to have estimated a late 2012 release, even this could be optimistic.

However the point is, they announced this new intended 'schedule' earlier this year, that means Microsoft could be well into the development of Windows 9 and whilst many of you will know that the big players tend to have their OS versions planned well in advance, this shorter time scale could mean we see what are essentially updates being charged for and released in much the same way adobe are doing with their CS5.5 announcement with an intended CS6 a year later. Does that mean Microsoft might put out Windows 8 late next year and then charge for a rebuild to Windows 8.5 for new features, etc, in 2013/14? Before releasing Windows 9 a year or two later? I honestly don't know, but I do have reservations regarding the scheduling.

However people do tend to forget that Microsoft have always done this, Windows 95 was released in August 1995 and replaced in May 1998 by Windows 98 which had a number of... Well, awful successors, Windows Me & 2000 in September 2000, which was replaced quickly a year later by Windows XP in August 2001 and again by Vista in January 2007.

The issue is the short term memory, there was a huge gap between XP and Vista and due to automated updates many wrongfully assumed that Microsoft needn't release an operating system every 3 years to improve upon it, no longer were discs needed for Service Pack updates, etc, however Microsoft still need to fund development and in truth you need the software to take full advantage of the new hardware which progresses very fast these days. A lot of this requires you to wipe the board clean and start from scratch rather than build on top of an existing system.

This has of course prompted the Google Chrome OS which in truth has it's pros and cons, personally I have my reservations of an operating system which is essentially ran from online, however with a PC that literally runs it's programs from online instead of off the hard drive theoretically it should be faster and the boot time will be very good for businesses, though you would need an internet connection. A good one at that. Your files are stored online.

The next thing is the cost, Google's new model is that of a monthly payment scheme for the Google Chromebook, in the past companies would update their PCs whenever a new operating system would come out, roughly every 3 years, now they try to hang on to the PCs as long as possible to save cost during the difficult financial times we live in. Indeed this could be the option businesses are looking for, but it all depends on how much Google are charging for a Laptop per month, £15? £30? Within 3 years you could have spent as much on it as a mid range gaming rig, whereas you can get Microsoft 7 on a business PC for £400, possibly even less now. Then there are the connection problems, it will reportedly need to be online in order to work. This could be the Google Chromebook's achilles heel, phone wires get cut, ISPs go down, phone exchanges get damaged, people even have down time when moving premises and waiting for the broadband to switch over.
With a traditional computer at least you can use Word and Excel, not getting your e-mails or being able to use the internet is an inconvenience, however as the Chromebook is reportedly running the OS from online you won't be able to use the computer at all without the internet, if your connection is off for days, it's useless.

Many of my clients are happy moseying on with Windows XP although it is likely by the time of the next Windows, if the current absence of Internet Explorer 9 on XP is anything to go by, that Windows XP support from Microsoft (updates, etc) will be dropped.

I am undecided, could we see Google pinch a chunk of the market dominated by Apple, Microsoft and the numerous Unix and Linux coders or will the Google Chromebook be to computing what betamax was to video, a good idea but it never really panned out.

We shall see.