Why Chrome OS? Google says, why not?
Apparently, organizing the world's information and making it universally accessible and useful will require a new operating system.
Google has long worked on expanding its reach beyond mere Internet search. And as many had suspected, it confirmed late Tuesday night that it plans to develop a lightweight operating system based on Linux and Web standards for personal computers.
Why? Well, Google's standard response to any question about why it's working on something other than search is to declare that any product that helps people get on the Web, and enjoy their experience on the Web, benefits Google's advertising customers in that more Web users equals more Google searches.
Yet, Chrome OS represents something more. There's a competitive impact that can't be ignored, no matter how often Google insists that it's in this world to do good rather than inflict pain on other corporations.
Few details were available Wednesday concerning one of the most important and ambitious projects Google has ever undertaken. Sources familiar with the Chrome OS project say Google engineers have only been working on the project in earnest since the beginning of the year, so there's likely a lot that still needs to be ironed out.
Chrome OS is the byproduct of Google thinking it can do better than Windows, Mac OS X, the various flavors of Linux, and even its own Android operating system. It's long been obvious that the world has changed from a personal computing model built for individuals working offline or businesspeople sharing files across a workplace to one where the consumer/business lines have blurred and people are expected to be online anywhere and everywhere.
Accompanying that shift has been the decreasing importance of processing power and operating system complexity. For years, the dirty secret of the computer industry has been that most people don't use nearly the amount of headroom provided to them by modern microprocessors and operating systems.
After all, if you're searching the Web, sending e-mail, typing up documents, touching up photos, and updating your Facebook status--hardly an uncommon usage model--you're more concerned with speed and battery life than raw power. Those still playing Doom or editing video will always need something more robust, but most people do spend an awful lot of time in the browser and have embraced smartphones and Netbooks as a way of staying online on the go.
Google's general idea seems to be twofold. First, it wants to make it easier for regular people to use a computer by making an operating system that is fast, secure, and lightweight enough to run on portable devices.
Sources familiar with Google's plans for the Chrome OS said that the company is working on a new method of "windowing," or switching between multiple applications. Google also believes that the whole idea of storing your files and applications in folders is an archaic way of organizing your data, and plans to unveil a new user interface that handles things a little differently.
Secondly, Google believes that through the use of Web standards like HTML 5--promoted heavily during its recent Google I/O conference as the development platform of the future--software development on a browser-based OS will be easily understood by developers reared in the Web 2.0 era.
This is not a new idea. Palm is betting its future on such a strategy, having introduced WebOS on the Palm Pre as a Web-friendly development environment based on a browser engine running atop Linux. Sound familiar?
Google's Chrome OS could be running on Netbooks such as these by the second half of 2010.
(Credit: CNET)Google brings much more to bear than Palm, however. It has an entire suite of Web applications and services that already form much of what you want a computer to do: send e-mail, compose documents, edit photos, and, of course, browse the Web.
But why does Google think it needs two operating systems to address this evolving usage model? Much of the language used to introduce Chrome OS could have been pulled from a blog post two years ago introducing Android, Google's lightweight Linux-based open-source smartphone operating system.
Just a few months ago Google's Andy Rubin declared Android to be "a revolution" that would help Google conquer the write-once, run-anywhere goal that has eluded the non-Microsoft software community for so many years. And Google executives have endorsed the concept of other companies building things other than phones based on Android.
However, Android appears to now occupy a different role in Google's thinking. According to Tuesday night's blog post, "Android was designed from the beginning to work across a variety of devices from phones to set-top boxes to netbooks. Google Chrome OS is being created for people who spend most of their time on the web, and is being designed to power computers ranging from small netbooks to full-size desktop systems."
As noted, there are an awful lot of details that still need to surface before we can glean Google's true intent with Chrome OS, not to mention the potential impact. Google said it plans to release the code for Chrome OS later this year, with the expectation that devices based on the OS could arrive in the second half of 2010.
But one thing is for sure: Google's ambitions are boundless. The company is proposing to do nothing less than rewrite the rules that govern personal computing.
Tom Krazit writes about the ever-expanding world of Internet search, including Google, Yahoo, online advertising, and portals, as well as the evolution of mobile computing. He has written about traditional PC companies, chip manufacturers, and mobile computers, spending the last three years covering Apple. E-mail Tom. 
"Apparently, organizing the world's information and making it universally accessible and useful will require a new operating system."
It should read, "Apprarently, gathering the worlds information and making it universally accessible to marketers requires a new operating system."
And Microsoft has its own history of being invasive - how many times has your IE reset its start page to Bing?
Microsoft left itself open to this - it will be interesting to see how it plays out.
Um, how about "zero". On either XP or Win 7 RC.
Thus, "zero" for the argument.
Yeah... just what the world needs - another OS which allows us now the ability to access email and write email? Are you kidding me? If the PC is a productivity tool to get work done, yes get on the web, maybe take notes, possible do some collaboration, maybe play a few games here and there, why would I need yet another device that gets on the web and accesses email more quickly? I mean seriously - are you telling me the boot time it takes to load up Windows 7 RC (20-30 seconds - less time from a sleep awake) is the selling point of a Google OS? You have got to be kidding me.
Again, back to the facts. "We want to create an OS which allows us to have you be 100% dependent on the internet so your information can be stored, cataloged, dug into, researched, and then sold to the highest bidder. We don't need you doing anything else here - just use our services so we can have our advertising partners leverage your information all the more to sell you stuff... stuff you reallly care about because yeah, you wrote that email and there were words in there like, 'camera', 'computer,' 'iphone,' 'can opener,' 'mothers day'...
Google is a advertsing company.... an advertising behemoth - they care not about anything... and I do mean ANYTHING but securing their search dominance and their revenue stream and doing that unrestricted.
As far as OS's go - this is no OS - this is a thin client that has some offline capabilities. It is a data collection point to marketers. This is like those computers that you could get back in the early 2000's that would give you a computer for free but you had to look at a huge banner ad... except with Google the context has been imbedded at a submersive level gathering your information, collecting your day to day roaming and email writing only to be kept on file forever without checks and balances on data retention.
Provide or maintain a simple streamlined OS? Are you kidding me? Vista works for me... I'm using it right now to type this darn response. It works darn good. I like it - it runs the applications I like to use, it gets on the internet, and all the information I put through my mail provider is not sold to the highest bidder.
Googles action is something I have wanted and waited for, for many years.
The arrogance of Windows can, hopefully, very shortly be broken. Just a look at the prices from Windows - for WIN 7 - frightens me.
Does jessiethe3rd really believe that Microsoft and Windows do not place "spyware" on his/her PC?
Not only Windows, but almost ALL purchased programmes install some form of spyware - often concealed, often dangerous - and we still buy and run this software!
Google makes no show of denying such practices, even to the extent of proposing to pay "Bloggers" for placed, clicked, adverts from Google. There is no "hidden" penalty, quite the reverse - Google have offered, for a long time, the possibility for "Mr absolutelynormawithnoideaofhtmletcl" not only to create his own sphere, share it, and possibly earn money from it, FOR FREE!
On the other hand, you can stay with Windows, accept the hidden spyware, the virus in its Browser and elsewhere, enjoy those little blank boxes with a little red cross instead of an image etc... and pay for it...!
When Windows want more money - they will let you know - No more updates for what we know to be our best product (XP) - no more information or patches for problems with our product - sort it out yourselves! Windows advises you = BUY our new product, we don't know if it will work, and if it does we don't know for how long, but anyway.............!
To set the matter straight - I have nothing against Windows - It's a commercial company, grown to a monster - that's all.
What Windows needs is a SERIOUS competitor, and I hope GOOGLE will be just that, along with LINUX and the other open source possibilities.
Your choice
Seriously, is anyone else suspicious or even concerned about the innovative ways Google continues to come up with for mining and storing personal data on people? It certainly makes one wonder about the accusations of Google's link to the intelligence community....it should make us ask more questions.
Article:
Search engine company has long been in bed with intelligence network
http://www.infowars.net/articles/march2008/310308Google.htm
How can you compare having your homepage reset (if it did happen) to having your email, twitter, IM and phone conversations harvested for your activityto resell (or in the case of China to imprison you) to a marketer?!
I wouldnt have a problem with Google doing this if their core business wasnt advertising.. MS may not get it right all the time but I know what their intention is: Sell us software... not to take away my privacy for a profit like Google.
really...really? you honestly think with the amount of scrutiny that MS has from the world (US goverment and EU agencies come to mind) that if spyware existed in MS products no one would have found it by now?!
The fact is you can go grab a copy of any MS product and start dissecting, scanning and monitoring its activity pretty easily.. can you do that with Google? oh wait.. you cant? because all their magic takes place in the cloud? and you dont have access to that do you? and theres no question about spyware with Google... thats their core business! this is how they make money.
So if your only beef with MS is that they want to be paid for what they make then I think you need to pay closer attention to the capitalistic nature of business and stop sticking out your hand for freebies. If price bothers you so much go and write your own OS and then give it away like Linus did.
Ultimately though sounds like you chose to take the blue pill from Google and trade your privacy as currency for their services... its kinda funny, MS has always been associated with the Borg.. but who is more Borg like MS or Google?
And I'm a PC.
And I'm a...Chrome OS?
Hi, I'm a Mac.
And I'm a PC.
And I'm a ... Chrome OS.. Resistance is futile.. We are the Borg.
Unrelated to above post: My problem is that with Google docs with gears, there is no downloadable file with a program to run it. I want to have a gears download that becomes a program, and a file download that becomes the file the downloaded (or online) program READS the external file. I do not want it in the same location. I want to be able to bring it over to a friend's house when my Comcast bites itself in the @$*.
It is about time for a new look at things and if Google plays it's cards right, they are good for a 30% market share in 10 years. Maybe that gets Microsoft off the ******* and to develop a new (not repackaged) OS from scratch.
They are not just taking on Microsoft. They are also taking on Apple. Google is a one trick pony, search. Everything else has flopped or is insignificant. It would be nice if all you had to do was write an OS and BAM!, you get 30% market share just like that. You need developers and hardware partners too. Not to mention a compelling reason to not buy a Mac or a PC.
This is a waste of time and money.
Let's not forget that Google is an 80% plus market share behemoth too. Do you really want one company with complete control of your access to the internet?
It is about time for a new look at things and if Google plays it's cards right, they are good for a 30% market share in 10 years. Maybe that gets Microsoft off the ******* and to develop a new (not repackaged) OS from scratch."
Google is only interested in their own marketshare.
Thats the only damn reason they are doing this.
A web os that will naturally favor their own products.
"Maybe that gets Microsoft off the ******* and to develop a new (not repackaged) OS from scratch."
Atleast they developed their own kernel without relying on the Open Source community to do it for them. -cough-Google and Apple-cough-
Microsoft created a kernel that intergrates IE and opens the OS to the Internet.
Windows is slow, bloated, and has had code that stops other companies products from performing well and Microft give themselves access to secret APIs.
It´s about time someone created something better, cheaper, faster, and more secure.
I am sure that Google is the best company to do this.
"Maybe that gets Microsoft off the ******* and to develop a new (not repackaged) OS from scratch."
Atleast they developed their own kernel without relying on the Open Source community to do it for them. -cough-Google and Apple-cough-
And look how it took them to create their own kernal. And it's still buggy!!
Define success?
Gmail sucessful? Did they create something that didnt exist already? its not making money.. it's not a market leader... how is this not a flop?
Chrome browser sucessful? Did they create that didnt exist already? its not making money.. it's not a market leader... how is this not a flop?
Google Docs sucessful? Did they create something that didnt exist already? its not making money.. it's not a market leader.. how is this not a flop?
Chrome OS sucessful?... do you see a pattern here yet?
Google is'nt CREATING anything.. lets get that straight.. they are taking the hard work the Linux opensource community have slaved over for years and rebranding it.
I do agree with you that it would be great to have a lighter weight OS but not if its not full service.
Chrome OS seems to be minimalistic, just like Chrome browser
People DO use the processing power of their computers, right now. Sure, you can manipulate large photo albums and touch up photos with a slow machine, but it's SLOW. Sure, you can watch YouTube and Netflix on a slow computer, but it will stutter, and the quality will be turned down, etc. Any reporter who doesn't think that you NEED the current Core 2 Duo or equivalent power + a video co-processor should just try to watch video on a NetBook using the Atom and GMA950.
Do you need the overhead of an OS like Windows or OS X or Linux? yes, if you want to effectively multi-task and manage things like laptop battery life and fans, networking efficiency and privacy, etc.
Now, do most people need Core i7s? No, probably not. Do they need every feature of Windows Pro or OS X? Of course not. But obviously, because you aren't very informed, you'd be surprised at just how much of those OSes are used everyday by people without them even being aware of it.
If you want a glorified iPhone with mini-apps, etc. then a low overhead Google OS with a slow processor is the ticket. But anything more, and the processing power has finally caught up to what people want to do with their machines today. And even then, some things will be faster with more power, or at least with more memory and a switch to faster SSDs.
some people like that
I prefer my mountains of addons and Firefox
Ah yes the old Google answer to everything.. "its Good enough"
I'm so glad Google doesnt have 90% of the market because think about how sad we would be if everyone adopted a just "Good enough" mentality.
As much as I like and enjoy using its products though I have been using Bing (faster) and Ask (more relevant) a lot more lately, Google is using its monopolistic position in advertising, search and general Web services to put Microsoft out of business. And that is illegal.
Having a presence on the Apple board and working with Microsoft's customers (PC makers) against Microsoft, is conspiracy in the real sense and should bring a RICO allegation against Google and its collaborators. What Google is doing sounds a lot like what Intel gets in trouble for a lot. Where is the outrage against Google?
Everyone loves Google. Everyone loves Warren Buffet. If Buffett started building cars, better cars maybe, maybe not and giving them away with the hope and goal of dominating the market for his insurance businesses, would that be fair competition to Ford?
Critics of Microsoft (or is it of Bill Gates) often refer to the "Microsoft tax?, let?s be realistic here. If/when Google realizes its goal of dominating the Web experience, everyone, even those who never use a computer or the Internet, will pay a ?Google tax?. The Google Tax will hit all consumers as providers of goods and services pay the Troll whatever it demands to advertise in it?s G-Space.
In the 1970's the Hunt Brothers (Texas oil billionaires) tried to corner the silver market By 1980 they were forced to declare bankruptcy. Greed always does 'em in.
It's only illegal if you are actually a convicted monopoly - so Microsoft for example can't use this tactic but Google and anyone else can, but there are no laws against cornering a market just so long as you do so with fair business practices. Of course, google are attracting a lot of regulatory eyeballs lately so I guess we'll know soon enough how they're doing on that front.
Microsoft is a convicted monopoly. The whole reason they are as big as they are is because they used unfair and illegal business practices. Even today microsoft uses document formats to make it difficult or impossible for businesses to use or switch to competing office suite products. So spare us the righteous indignation of someone using questionable or unfair business practices against microsoft.
The Warren Buffett analogy only works if you modify it so that it goes like this. Warren Buffett starts making cars and gives them away free with a long term insurance policy. He also makes a deal with the oil companies so that he gets paid every time someone driving a non-buffett car fills their tank at a gas station. Then after a few years the buffet car company designs and pattens a square gas inlet. By now most of the cars on the road are buffet cars so all the gas stations change to square gas nozzles on their pumps. There I think that's a much more apt analogy.
I hope that this Chrome OS is downloadable and can share boot up so that I can dual boot into it (or virtualise it), just like those running Windoz on Mac currently.
Remembering also that "there can be nothing new under the sun".
"Mission Accomplished".... Full "OS/2 Warp" (CASSINI) Speed Ahead!
Vive La Difference,
Joe Blow
Its the intent by Google I hate, they dont just want to sell me something, they want to invasively use me for profit, they want to know everything about me so someone who they will get paid from can send me more spam, clog my mailbox with flyers, tell my credit card company what I like to spend my money on...thats what I have a problem with.
that last statement btw, credit card companies? they are reviewing you and your spending as we speak, perhaps in preparation to reduce your limit.. does it sound cool to you that Google could share your buying habits with them and it resulted in a limit placed because you were spending trivially in their eyes? this is the reality and why this goes beyond mere segmentation and competition.
You clearly see no value in any MS product and its net effect on desktop computing (you must be young), I suggest you go brush up on the history of this industry and see where it was prior to MS.. but i guess you are already leaning towards the olden days of centralized mainfraimes where you couldnt get anything done unless tethered to a monolithic system.. (hmm.. monolithic system = google? could that be?!).
So go ahead and belittle Microsoft for competing and winning their market, ridicule their product that assuredly you use on a daily basis but be thankful you at least control what of you.. you want to share.
- by faisalrasid July 9, 2009 12:17 AM PDT
- When Google apply to Chrome OS free for all, Google going to rule PC.
- Like this Reply to this comment
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- by jessiethe3rd July 11, 2009 1:42 PM PDT
- Ever heard the term, "In life, nothing is for free?"
- Like this
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- by heygeo July 23, 2009 3:10 PM PDT
- Uhm... yeah.. thats worked so well for the whopping 1% Linux share out there.. Linux is free btw in case you hadnt heard.
- Like this
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Showing 1 of 2 pages (73 Comments)LOL.
Your privacy is for sale and Google's buying.