Google Drops A Nuclear Bomb On Microsoft. And It’s Made of Chrome.
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
Or, in a bit less sensational words, they are not developing an OS but a window manager for an existing OS. They might also be dropping X11 as they go, but the article doesn't give that away.
This might actually work for netbooks that are mostly used as a fullscreen browser. But I don't see this making any significant inroads on bigger laptops or desktops in the foreseeable future. The technology behind "the web" just isn't up to the task. Wrong tool for the job.
The problems begin on such a basic level that I find it ridiculous someone with the engineering muscle of google is even considering this.
How basic? Well, we don't even have a Socket on this soon-to-be-an-OS platform. That basic. Admittedly it should be relatively simple to add and hopefully the one outcome of this project will be that Websocket finally gains traction (across all browsers).
But it doesn't stop there. The HTML/JS combo is lacking severely in many areas relevant to RIAs. People still have to reinvent basic widgets like comboboxes, datepickers, auto-completion, richtext input, sliders etc. in javascript. CSS is still a nightmare even for simple layouts. Will google fix these problems and break compatibility to other browsers? Don't think so.
So here's what I think they'll deliver: A mangled linux distro with chrome running fullscreen, likely even on top of X11. It'll have a fancy start-page that wants to log you into the google universe first. There will be some flashy widgets and a fancy javascript framework for the windowing - but overall it will just be a fullscreen browser with all its problems.
I hope they surprise me and do better. Because if this is their plan then I think it's time to sell some of those GOOG shares. Google never needed to hype their products upfront thus far. In that light this is a worrying announcement.
Some are claiming that rather than hurt Windows, this is going to take the market share Linux "might have had". But I really don't think that Linux users are going to want a system that gives up more of their privacy to Google, and restricts the power of your own computer to what you can do with Google.
So your question remains: why does it suit them now? (Guessing), perhaps part of their evolution into a huge corp?
That's what I thought when they launched Google Base. I still don't get it. (Is it supposed to be an S3 competitor?)
http://www.google.com/base/?gsessionid=6m6iYVR2r0FJA9WdwcC17...
google base : post it. Find it on Google.
The OS should seem like it isn't there at all. It should stay out of your way as much as possible, but be there to do what you want as quickly as possible, then get out of the way again. The OS should be like a storybook butler. Discrete, unobtrusive, quietly useful.
The BIOS is one area that is long overdue for some modernization. If the folks over at coreboot.org can do it from the outside, imagine what would happen if mobo manufacturers opened up their specs to the community and embraced what came out of it.
(No, that's a genuine question. I want to know if computers using EFI boot faster than those still stuck with BIOS.)
For a very large number of people, a cheap PC/netbook/tablet thing with a browser that can do web, email, light word processing & spreadsheets, boots in 2-3 seconds and costs $150 would be ideal. I'd buy one.
Chrome OS + Chrome Browser + Google Apps puts Google in a position to deliver this, using super light & cheap ARM netbooks, taking them to a place which Microsoft will find it very hard to follow. This puts them in a position to take away a pretty large proportion of MS's home users, who are currently running a ~2-3yr old PC with XP on it for these tasks.
If I were going to make a web OS, even for netbooks, I would rather have it use Firefox 3.5 as performance is much more predictable and reliable, not to mention it can be extended with addons, something I would consider a minimum for any platform.
DirectX has done almost as much, if not more, to preserve the Windows moat as MS Office has (moat in the sense that Warren Buffet says it). Many people buy Windows (or steal it) just to play games, just as many businesses stick with Windows because MS Office is the resume-standard office suite and VB apps are so easy to hammer out.
Really it'd be nice if either a) game developers switched to OpenGL, or b) the open source community came up with something better than DirectX from the developer perspective, creating a natural impetus to switch.
(Yes, I am being entirely selfish here, as I'd like to stop dual-booting for my non-Wine games.)
3D in the browser will be viable in a few years.
Edit: People can't take a joke. lol