Launching a free OS and giving up the code to anyone who may want to use it, Google is going down a new path. So how do they intend to make money from Chrome OS?
Well, there´s advertising of course! Duh! But recently-kicked-out-of-Apple CEO Eric Schmidt also sees a strategic advantage in Chrome OS “We do not require each and every product to be profitable or not profitable,” he says.
Schmidt also sees great promise in developers who elect to build on the platform. “If our platform strategy works, and there are many users of Chrome OS, there will be many opportunities to build profitable services on top of the platform. That’s been true for all of the successful platform plays in the history of computing. If it’s not successful, then it won’t really matter.”
I like his straighforward attitude and of course he´s right: if nobody uses Chrome OS it´s all moot, and if loads of people use it, it´ll be easy to milk it in some way or another (did I mention advertising? This being Google an´all?)
