Google staff dropping Windows for Macs, Linux PCs

...is at the Financial Times site below. My apologies for not clicking through. We need a "Submit a story correction" button!

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/d2f3f04e-6ccf-11df-91c8-00144feab4...

I fixed it for you. Thanks!

[serious]

I have seen this story elsewhere where the caveats are stressed (indeed, in the summary). Furthermore, the sources are mostly hearsay arising from lower levels. It may be true, but just because it is superficially attractive does not imply its validity. Moreover, there are many reasons Google, the corporation, might wish to take this course, albeit very slowly.

I have heard this tale of major corporations (or other entities) taking this or similar moves only to read years later how slowly it progressed or to it being no more than just a ploy. Nonetheless, like so many "years of ...", they happen. However, by then most are recognized long after the transition has been made or well towards its completion.

[/serious]

The story appears in the Financial Times which is hardly known for rumor mongering. If they printed the story they must have a pretty good source.

Also, the difference between Google and most other corporations is that most corporations are locked-in to Windows. Google is already supporting Windows, Linux and OSX. They don't have to change anything in their infrastructure. They're just going to phase out one of the three already existing platforms.

Nonetheless, the connection between Windows and the attacks is not that obvious to me.

If IE6 'inside Google' was the attack vector, how is this connected to the mailboxes of Chinese dissidents? Or do I 'misunderstand'?

@Hans: The hackers needed to gain access to GMail. AFAICT there are two ways to get into a GMail box. Get the user's password, or go via the administrative side.

I doubt that IE6 is responsible. That's just the MS party line blaming Google for not installing patches. I bet that the hackers wrote sophisticated spyware which needed Windows to run, in order to gain access to GMail from the admin end.

http://windowsteamblog.com/windows/b/bloggingwindows/archive...

;-P

Wow, Henke, talk about "head in the sand".

Reading the FT article, I have to wonder why people are so wedded to one or the other OS.

Considering cross-platform apps like Firefox, et al, and the fact that they're all programming for Linux-platform servers, I just don't get it.

Admittedly Google as a company will have to have a couple of Windows machines to use for testing, to make sure that their offerings aren't broken by Microsoft's "innovations".

but for the life of me, I can't think of any other reason.

I think it's malpractice for any IT person, or any tech reporter, to not have a grounding in Unix, Linux, Mac, and Windows. People are nuts, they act like peeking outside of Windows-land will melt their faces.

Federico Fieni in 2008 ´expressed it´ brilliantly : http://www.onecomics.it/12/09/2008/google-sfida-microsoft-co...