[PCWorld]

Post your comments for Windows 7 Fuels War Against Google here

[JimH443]

Say WHAT?
First MS gets sued on the basis that they're taking advantage of their monopoly by including features in the OS that discourage competition. Ok, I can understand that.
But now... MS thinks they can remove features from the OS and offer then as free downloads in order to improve their profits and market share?
Here's a radical thought - why not play this out to the extreme, and offer the entire operating system as a free download? It's done financial wonders for the various Linux versions.
Oh, wait. No. That was due to Vista's help. My bad.

[Malakie]

Someone at Microsoft better get their head out of their rear! Just because they happen to be in an area with super duper internet access does not mean the rest of us do.
What do they plan for all of us with very limited access? Do they really expect us to download all those things when my average internet speed is about 28k baud (yes slower than a 56K modem) over a long distance intermittent wireless connection?
I guess Microsoft really does want to drive users away from Windows and to Apple and Linux...

[polly212]

Do people actually use Google's office products? I tried Google's and it was the worst word processer since my Apple IIGS days. Add to that your stuff is on the Interwebs and potentially hackable makes it unsuitable for business.

OpenOffice works well, but Google's cloud computing office suite = total crap. I'm not sure MS should be so worried about it...

[etschuetz]

Ok, this is a two sided coin. On one side, a slimmer installation sounds wonderful. I honestly don't use many of the programs that come with Windows, and use the ones I have always used. this can be good. Stripping the useful stuff, however is bad, as some has said.
All I can say in regards to what Microsoft is doing, they better drop that price tag down to a sub $100 level. No one will pay out the ying yang for just an operating system!

[etschuetz]

I use the Google Docs suite. It has its uses. It is great to have something online and useful when you needed where ever you go. For big projects, I stick to Word '03. Google Docs has a purpose. It serves that purpose well. That purpose is to provide a free product to individuals that do not want to invest in HDD realistate when it comes to installations. And it allows collaborative efforts for multiple individuals sharing the same document. Do that online in realtime with Office or OpenOffice.

[RNR19952]

Steve Ballmer recently said that his company is willing to lose "5% to 10% of total operating income for several years" to fund its ongoing attempt to make inroads into the search market.
And THIS is what is wrong with M$, ANYTIME another company is making money in computer software they try to crush them. WHY??? Just improve your operating systems already, leave security to another company, leave search to another company, leave multimedia to another company FOCUS on something that M$ is good at, and be GREAT at it, instead of mediocrity everywhere!

[BobSamuels]

There's an obvious benefit to the slimline Desktop OS. Instead of having so many apps installed as part of the OS, you (or your employer) can choose from a number of ways to deploy those apps to the OS, pre-configured app packages installed by a distribution technology, streamed apps (e.g. with MS App-V or Citrix Streaming), Terminal Server hosted Apps (e.g. Citrix XenApp and/or Windows Terminal Services). It's all about flexibility of delivery. If a company wishes to stream down the desktop OS (e.g. with Citrix Provisioning Server), the smaller the OS footprint, the better, as well. Not something a home user tends to worry about but Microsoft doesn't just sell their desktop OS to home users.

[scttmyr]

Nice article. I also am a "Live" user and a Vista user. I think you are quite right about the tie in for WLive and Win7. What would be even better to clean up the OS is to REMOVE Internet explorer and create it as a stand alone- W/O all the integration to the OS. Same goes for the explorer file manager, that should be separate and non web enabled by default.
My next question would be is MSFT going to allow Google to continue to install their apps on Win7 w/o some kinda rigamorale? with the aforementioned apps removed from win7, Google apps becomes real appealing....as replacements for those abilities.Could this be why Google is pushing Vendors to include them in their PC distros in the not to distant future?