Yesterday, Google announced it will be moving into the Operating System market with Chrome OS. It seems like a natural evolution to what has become part of their stable of online 'office' products like Gmail, Google Docs and Google Calendar.
Maybe the launch of Google Wave was meant to show integration among their products in this space.
However, the move gave me pause. It makes me think about the posts I wrote about Jim Collins' Good to Great. How do big companies maintain market dominance and leadership? Google is pretty good at it. Yet, one of the most important ideas in the Good to Great series is the Hedgehog concept.
The hedgehog concept challenges a company to define what it is best at doing. Not what it wants to be best at doing. It is a core focus and mission.
While reading a Media Post summary by Joe Mandese, it was right there - In it's biggest deviation yet from is core mission statement of "managing the world's information," not to mention its most direct assault on Microsoft, Google late Tuesday officially announced its entry into the computer operating system market.
Will the shift from Google being a great search engine and building better tools for searching and advertising via search prove to be a successful one? Or will the ambitious drive through the muddy OS waters cause the Chrome to rust. It will be interesting to watch.
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