Google and Apple display the corporate equivalent of dark glasses and celebrity insouciance, gaining reams of free publicity with their every move. Yet while Apple need only step on stage with a product ready for sale, Google gets attention for merely mentioning its intentions. Dominance of search, piles of cash and an army of engineers do make it too powerful to be ignored. But there is no clear reason why Microsoft should quake over yesterday's announcement that Google intends to launch a free, fully fledged operating system by next year.
Google's web browser Chrome, on which the new operating system will be based, has a mere 2 per cent market share. To make the slightest dent in Microsoft's control of the PC world, manufacturers of the netbooks at which it will be aimed will have to be persuaded to pre-install the software.
As with Google's Android operating system for mobile phones, it takes time to win allies. Although several manufacturers are developing handsets based on the software, Taiwan's HTC is the only large assembler so far with Android-based phones on the market.