Are Google's Shares Worth $5,000 - $10,000 (now $485)? - Part 1
If Google's top executives met up with their counterparts at Microsoft and offered Google for sale at a fair price Microsoft would have a cheque ready before anyone had time to finish their coffee.
But if Microsoft's executives walked into Google's boardroom and offered to sell Microsoft, Google's executives would have trouble stopping laughing.
Why is this so? Simple, it's all about the future control of our computers and data. Microsoft is old school, Google is not only new school but in my opinion the future because over the next 2-7 years there's going to be one hell of a battle for the total control of your computer AND its data.
Holiday Conundrums
The above became apparent to me when I was recently on holiday. I had taken my laptop and had spent some time in the office prior to takeoff making sure that the laptop had all the software I needed and of course the all important data. But what happened? When on holiday I had to do some routine work and found that although I had 99% of my data the 1% that I didn't have was what I really needed. Fortunately though I was able to get hold of these via an online data storage service I use (www.DataDepositBox.com) but still, it was a hassle.
And that right there is the trouble with computers today. In the office we have 7 computers and while they're all networked up for internet/printing they don't share the same data nor the same programs. And while the office functions perfectly well one could argue that it's not nearly as slick as it could be.
In fact one could argue that it's unacceptable that we still have these problems when personal computers are at least 20 years old and the internet 10 years old. In a perfect world every computer that we have access to would be the same with identical programs, and much more critically important identical data. If you think about it asking for this doesn't seem too much.
Google Docs Are Making Microsoft Shudder
Right now Google makes the majority of its money from advertising, offering its excellent search engine as a loss leader. But followers of Google will have noticed that over the last few years they're starting to release new online products such as an alternative to Microsoft's ubiquitous Office Program (Word, Excel etc). With Word the program is located on your computer along with your data but with Google's Docs & Spreadsheets everything is located on Google's servers.
Therefore if I type this article on my office computer using Google Docs, then drive to a friend's house or office all I do is login and that's it. No emailing the file, no copying it onto USB drives, no burning to CDs etc.
Microsoft's Present Advantage Is Its Future Problem
Right now and for the last 20 odd years Microsoft has had control of your computer via its operating systems, first MS-DOS and then the Windows environment. Something like 90% of the world's computers at present have Windows located on them, basically it's a monopoly.
But what happens if we don't need Windows anymore because all programs and more importantly all our data is stored on a central server (a very large computer)? Turn on any PC, input your login/username and bang everything is the same, no need to worry about this program being on that PC and that important data file being on another.
What About Security
This shouldn't be too hard to crack because it's easy to envisage a few simple types of security measures alongside the standard username/password -
- Put a small chip in your arm (this is coming)
- Have a chip located in a ring (could be any ring, worth £3 or £3,000)
- Have a key fob which spits out a random number every minute, enter your username, password and the random number and you're in (many investment banks already use this system and PayPal are testing it at the moment)
