If Google stick to Netbooks and don’t havev to worry about interoperability and support of a myriad of legacy devices then Googles new OS can be a success in that marketspace.
But when you start talking about desktops, combining screens, joyticks, mice, printers, routers and the thousands of various combinations of periphials then microsofts O/S have literally hundreds of millions of hours advantage … and will retain that space for decades to come.
PC’s complex envirnoment means that the OS needs a ton of work, each and every day to stay current.
We have plenty of precedent :
Linux and it’s variants are good systems, but cannot handle the complexity of so many devices.
MAC is a good system, but only supports its own devices.
But both these OS’s cannot compete in the commerical / consumer space due to their lack of support for all the connecting devices.