The Yaxis Live by Rajesh Kumar

Let’s face it. Bing has given it hard to Google. That’s why Google rush announced its OS initiative, though it still a year before the Google / Chrome OS becomes available. Quite unlike Google, which loves to do word-of-mouth and grapevine publicity of its products.

Recall the hype around Android, Chrome, Gmail and so on. Google has demonstrated that it knows how to use the crowd very successfully, and is a master of the grapevine mill. The best in the game, to put it one way. When it launched Gmail, it was by word-of-mouth and referral. It carried the beta tag for years for that added glamour of being an early user. In short, the Google style is to fire the grapevine, and then confirm it after a while, which could be months away. So it completely beat me why they chose to announce that they are working on an Operating System, that would be available a year from now. Simply put, this is not Google style of promotion. It appears quite knee jerk to be so.

Its quite surprising that they even chose to link it to a product (Chrome), which is perceived as less than resounding success. What’s more, Microsoft has given signs of delinking Internet Explorer with the O/S, at least in some geographies.

In my view, this could have something to do with the favourable reviews Windows 7 and its impending launch in the next few months. It could also be a sign that Bing continues to do well. So, is it a kick-for-a-kick? One only hopes this will have a downward impact on Windows 7 prices. Like Ratan Tata said while launching the Indica car – courtesy his company, people could now by a Maruti car cheaper!