Cringely's assertion that Google should fear making Google search not work on Windows PCs is ludicrous. Period. Anyone who seriously thinks any broadly successful (public) company would pull a stunt like that and piss off the vast bulk of their users has lost touch with reality.
After reading this my first thought was "Has the NY Times come to the point where their space is worth so little that they'll just let Cringley ramble on for a couple pages?" There's virtually no real insight here. Just a bunch of random observations from a guy whose been out of the loop for more than a decade.
Any such incident would cause irrevocable damage with any government/enterprise and push them to abandon the platform entirely. As you say, it's just absurd.
http://www.ecis.eu/documents/Finalversion_Consumerchoicepape...