Google Ditches Windows for New Employees, Goes with OSX or Linux Instead

I’ve worked at quite a few places in my day, but none quite like what Google and Pixar have created, and frankly, that makes me a bit jealous. See that slide up there? That’s in Google’s corporate headquarters, believe it or not, and is just one of the cool things about their workplace. It gives me hope, frankly. Hope that one day, I too will work at a place (or run a place, even) with a slide in the building. Frankly, I think that’s probably the most important thing I could ever expect to do with my life.

But let’s say you’re a new hire at Google, and you have your hopes pinned on a Google computer with Windows 7 Ultimate installed. Well, your luck has just run out. That’s because according to FT.com, Google and Windows aren’t buddies anymore.

Google is phasing out the internal use of Microsoft’s ubiquitous Windows operating system because of security concerns, according to several Google employees.

The directive to move to other operating systems began in earnest in January, after Google’s Chinese operations were hacked, and could effectively end the use of Windows at Google, which employs more than 10,000 workers internationally.

“We’re not doing any more Windows. It is a security effort,” said one Google employee.

“Many people have been moved away from [Windows] PCs, mostly towards Mac OS, following the China hacking attacks,” said another.

I know it’s cliche to say that Macs are great because they don’t get viruses, but that seems to be the big motivator with Google. That said, it’s only a matter of time and popularity before OS X starts getting attacked directly by virus builders, mostly to upset that cliche. It may be comfortable here on planet OS X now, but I don’t anticipate it being that way forever. For the moment though, this is just another example of Microsoft’s decline over the past decade. I wonder where they’ll eventually end up.