Google's real threat to Microsoft

John Gapper (FT: Google launches Microsoft's big fear) misses the underlying reason that Google's threat to Microsoft - to make Windows unnecessary - comes from them making applications run on the web browser rather than the operating system.

He credits the new Google Chrome browser's appearance, but their key move is to make web applications work fast and allow you to use them offline.

In fact Firefox, Safari and even MS's Internet Explorer are cohorts in this move, as they all run Google's Gears. (Chrome also has the fastest javascript engine, which will improve the performance of web apps, but that is an incremental benefit.)

Gears lets a web site store application code and data on your local computer. This deals with the big complaints about web applications - they're slower than desktop software and don't work without a net connection.

Chrome's main impact is that it gives Google proper control enabling its web-based philosophy - but Google doesn't need Chrome to succeed.

As a parallel threat to Microsoft, Google are far more expert in running hosted web applications -  a very different skill to making locally-installed software apps (witness Apple's launch fiasco for MobileMe). The trend to hosted apps is distinct from the trend to web-based apps (e.g. you can now rent MS Exchange as a hosted service instead of running it on your own server, and still access it with the Outlook desktop app) but hosted apps and web-based interfaces go hand in glove.

Is MS doomed? Their last bastion in business is MS Exchange - even if MS lost their Windows franchise tomorrow,  Exchange would still be the market leader - and Exchange's desktop client, Outlook, compels us to use Windows. But the competition is warming up - Yahoo's Zimbra is looking good and supports Outlook, Blackberries and iPhones...