-Tom Dunmore is Brand Director & Editor-in-Chief at Stuff magazine - Stuff has over 1 million readers worldwide. The opinions expressed are his own.-

Google announced on Wednesday that it was developing its own computer operating system. It will be secure, fast, lightweight and - most of all - free. And it presents the biggest challenge yet to the long-standing dominance of Windows.

The idea behind Google ChromeOS is nothing new - it’s built on a Linux foundation and will no doubt share many of the features of other open-source operating systems. But Google is the only computing brand with more might than Microsoft: it’s trusted, and has a proven track record of building brilliant, free services, from search to instant messaging.

Indeed, Google has been busily chipping away at Microsoft’s market for some time, with the Google Docs suite of in-browser applications providing a decent (and free) alternative to Microsoft Office, while the Android mobile phone software has pulled the rug from under Windows Mobile.

Microsoft’s attempts to strike back by stealing some of Google’s lucrative internet search advertising market have had little success - hence the rebranding of MSN as Live search, and the subsequent replacement of Live search with Bing.

But Microsoft’s core business is the Windows operating system that powers nine in ten of the world’s computers. By launching against Windows, Google is declaring out-and-out war - and doing so when Microsoft is at its weakest.

Windows market share has slumped from 91percent to 88 percent in just one year, according to Net Applications. The failure of the latest version of Windows, Vista, has been so catastrophic that, well over two years after its release, many Windows PCs are still sold the previous version, XP. Why? Because Vista is simply too demanding for the new generation of cheap, low-powered - and immensely popular - netbooks.

And while the Mac market share has risen from 8 percent to 10 percents in the last 12 months, Apple’s high prices ensure that it will never truly challenge Microsoft for the mainstream.

So it’s no surprise the Google is will be targetting its ChromeOS at netbook users when the operating system is released in 2010. And if ChromeOS works as Google promises – making the most of free web services, but totally secure and immune to viruses - it will quickly pick up support within cash-strapped businesses too.

Meanwhile Microsoft’s Windows 7, due in October, promises to be faster and less processor intensive - but it’s still built on foundations that predate the internet. And it still costs hundreds of pounds.

Windows isn’t about to be eradicated - inertia and conservatism will stop many corporate environments from switching to ChromeOS. But Microsoft’s near-monopoly on the operating system could be ending. But be warned: a bigger, Google-flavoured monopoly awaits.

-Tom Dunmore is editor-in-chief of Stuff magazine. The opinions expressed are his own.-

Yesterday, Apple unveiled the latest version of its wildly popular iPhone. And it was quite a show, despite the absence of Apple’s usual ringmaster Steve Jobs.

The keynote speech at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco was heaving the massed ranks of the global media, hyped by rumours of mini iPhones, touschscreen Macs and Steve Jobs’ early return from sick leave.

In the end, Apple’s hardware announcement was more prosaic - the new iPhone 3G S looks exactly the same as the old iPhone 3G but is faster, has a better camera, and offers voice control.

But it quickly became clear to the audience that the iPhone is about much more than hardware. Developer after developer took to the stage to show off their new software, which ranged from multiplayer games to a medical application that allows doctors to remotely monitor a patient’s vital signs.

There are already 50,000 programs available from the iTunes App Store, and the 40million iPhone and iPod Touch users have each downloaded an average of 25 apps - taking the total downloads to over 1billion since the App Store launched less than a year ago.

Many app downloads are free, but plenty of developers are making a good living from selling their wares to this growing audience, and the new iPhone 3.0 software - due out on June 17 - will allow them to charge for updates and subscriptions from within their applications.

The new iPhone software also enables turn-by-turn satellite navigation - which is destined to be a huge success, judging by the demonstration of iPhone software from TomTom.

And because iPhone 3.0 software is a free upgrade for existing iPhone users, there’s already a massive market for any new applications taking advantage of its new features.

Meanwhile Apple’s biggest rivals are preparing to release smartphones that are arguably technically superior to the iPhone. Nokia’s N97 will be released in the UK on June 19th - the same day as the iPhone 3G S - while Palm’s Pre has just hit the US market. Both iPhone rivals feature their own application download stores - but neither has the iPhone’s momentum. And without a vibrant community of developers, a smartphone is little more than a complicated way to make phonecalls.

The iPhone is changing the shape of the mobile phone market. The technical specification of a handset is no longer the key selling point - the hardware is now just a platform, and it’s the software that’s built upon it that really counts.

Until rival platforms develop a critical mass of users and developers, Apple can continue to turn small changes to the iPhone into great leaps towards global domination.

**Tom Dunmore is Editor-in-Chief of Stuff magazine. The views expressed are his own.**

Amazon’s music download service has finally arrived in the UK. That’s great news for music fans, who will benefit from lower prices and greater choice - but it’s not going to save the music industry from the dominance of iTunes.

After all, Amazon’s download service has been running for a year in America, but it’s still way behind iTunes. In fact, even if you add all of Amazon’s CD sales into the mix, iTunes is still bigger.

Here in the UK, iTunes has well over 50 percent of the music download market (some put the figure as high as 80 percent). And that’s despite Amazon’s biggest online rival Play.com selling MP3 music at knockdown prices for the past six months. Why? Because neither Play.com nor Amazon can match Apple’s integration of iTunes software and iPod hardware.

More importantly for the music industry, despite all the new rivals in the download market, there’s nowhere near enough music being sold to make up for the slump in CD sales.

The last figures published by the BPI, the UK’s music industry body, showed that total year-on-year album sales were down 5.5 percent. Digital sales were up, but not enough: 7.5million less CDs were sold in the first nine months of 2008 compared with the same period in 2007. Download album sales were up less than 3.5m.

And that was before the economic downturn really began to bite. To compound the music industry’s woes, the UK high street’s biggest music retailer, Woolworths, has gone into administration – along with its music distribution arm Entertainment UK.  Supermarkets are having to source their CDs direct from record companies, and megastore operator Zavvi has been forced to cancel all orders through its website.

It’s not all bad news for consumers: the treacherous market conditions have forced the music industry to do away with the Digital Rights Management (DRM), which limited how music could be played and made most download music incompatible with the massively popular iPod.  The end of DRM means that Amazon, and Play.com can offer their entire catalogues in ultra-compatible MP3 format – unlike iTunes, which still sells some songs with DRM.

Amazon’s entry to the download market will help push down prices, too – much has been made of Amazon’s £3-per-album introductory offer. But while price is important, it’s by no means the killer issue online – after all, the easy availability (and overwhelming popularity) of free music illegally downloaded from peer-to-peer services makes ‘bargain’ £3 albums a pretty tricky sell.

The key to Apple’s success has been convenience and ease of use: you can buy music in the same software you use to listen to music – or even buy it directly from your iPod. Until Amazon can produce something quicker and simpler than iTunes, it’s destined to be a bit-part player in the download music market.

Read Tom’s blog at www.stuff.tv/blogs/future