Google Dumps Windows on Security Concerns, Microsoft Responds

It has been reported that, Google is phasing out the internal use of Microsoft Windows operating system because of security concerns.

After Google’s Chinese operations were hacked in January, the security restrictions are made tight. Many employees have been moved away from Windows PCs, mostly towards Mac OS, following the China hacking attacks. New hires are now given the option of using Apple’s Mac computers or PCs running the Linux operating system. Getting a new Windows machine now requires CIO approval. Google employs more than 10,000 workers internationally.

It is a common belief that Windows is more vulnerable to attacks by hackers and more susceptible to computer viruses than other operating systems. LeBlanc of Windows Blog has criticized this and put the facts on table proving that Windows is very stable than any other OS.

While Google is the clear leader in search, Windows remains the most popular operating system in the world accounting for more than 80 percent of installations. Google and Microsoft compete on many fronts, from search, to web-based email, to operating systems. It is possible that Google’s alleged plan to dump Windows for internal use, may be a sneaky PR stunt to trumpet the security strengths of Google Chrome OS. Google Chrome OS is expected to be released by late this year. This would be Google’s move to ramp up its internal testing of the Chrome OS.

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The Google Search Appliance is based on the same software that is used in Google’s datacenters. The operating system is a hardened version of Linux that is optimized for search, sometimes referred to as Google Linux. [source]

In an interview at Linux Journal, Google’s Sergey Brin said: “Engineering mostly runs Linux. Business development/marketing runs Windows. Actually, I use Linux with VMWare running Windows. Some people have two computers, particularly some people in engineering who do UI development and need to test things out on Windows platforms. I find it better to just use VmWare and have one computer.”

This points out that, Google prefers the Google Linux version as the base OS, and install various Windows versions on VMWare for application testing purposes. Google has been using Linux in their data centers for Google Search, Google Appliances and other Google products.