Google Aims Twin Daggers at Microsoft’s Heart

[Commentary] Forget about Google’s struggle with Facebook for eyeballs and programmers. Pay no attention to its fight with Apple over smartphones, or to any other tech rivalry. The search giant’s war with Microsoft is The Big One, the confrontation that will determine what kind of future Microsoft has, and maybe if it even has a future.

And the two new weapons Google unsheathed last week carry an unmistakable message of mortal peril. First came the Nexus S, the new Google-labeled smartphone and the first to run “Gingerbread,” Google’s latest Android operating system. Then came a plain black laptop called the Cr- 48, the first computer to run the company’s Web-based Chrome Operating System. On the surface, neither seems particularly menacing. The Nexus S, made by Samsung, is the successor to one of the most hyped and least successful products of 2010, the lovely and ill-fated Nexus One. And the Cr-48 isn't even for sale. It’s a generic prototype that Google is making available to thousands of developers, companies and others to get them familiar with the concept of the new operating system before commercial versions from manufacturers show up next year.