Now Google is aiming for Microsoft's financial jugular with Chrome its operating system. Microsoft has drawn much of its power - and profits - from the Windows operating system that has steered most personal computers for the past two decades. Google's chief executive, Eric Schmidt, and its co-founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, have made little attempt to conceal their disdain for Windows in recent years. Schmidt maintains Microsoft sometimes unfairly rigs its operating system to limit consumer choices - something that Microsoft has consistently denied doing. Google fears Microsoft could limit access to its search engine and other products if Windows is set up to favor Microsoft products in the default settings.

Page and Brin have frequently derided Windows as a clunky operating system susceptible to computer viruses and other security problems. Google made a veiled reference to Windows' perceived shortcomings in its blog posting. "We hear a lot from our users and their message is clear - computers need to get better," wrote Sundar Pichai, Google's vice president of product management and Linus Upson, Google's engineering director.

A Microsoft spokesman didn't immediately respond to an e-mail request for comment sent early Wednesday morning. Schmidt and Brin are expected to discuss Google's new operating system later this week when they appear at a media conference hosted by Allen & Co. at the Sun Valley resort in Idaho. Despite its own power and prominence, Google won't have an easy time changing the status quo that has governed the personal computing industry for so long. As an example of how difficult it is to topple a long-established market leader, Google estimates about 30 million people are now using its Chrome browser - a fraction of those that rely on Microsoft's market-leading Internet Explorer. And there have been various attempts to develop open-source software to undermine Microsoft with relatively little effect.

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