John pooh poohs Google Chrome OS, just like he pooh poohed the Palm Pre. John’s a smart guy, and has some good insights into the technology world. But on the issue of Google Chrome OS, I think he’s wrong. Google isn’t in the operating system market, it’s in the software services market. The easier Google can make it to get to their hosted applications, the more customers they’ll have. To paraphrase Larry Ellison’s famous quote, “the web is the operating system”.
I’ve been watching my friends and family struggle with computers for years. Not a single one of them really cares about what operating system they use. What they care about is doing something with their computer. The operating system is the interface through which they can do stuff. Invariably it gets in their way, and causes nothing but frustration. People don’t care about their operating system because they don’t care about their computer. Just like they don’t care about their cars, or any other household appliance. People grudgingly add more RAM to their systems because they get bogged down with antivirus software, and printer monitor utilities to remind them they’re out of paper, and all sorts of useless doodads that suck up system resources without providing any value to the experience of using the computer. “This thing’s only a year old, and already it’s so slow!”
In the dark ages of personal computer history, everyone wanted to use Microsoft Publisher to make fliers and calendars and what not. People used Microsoft Works, or ClarisWorks, or WordPerfect, or whatever it was that came bundled with their PC in order to print up phone directories for their churches, or whatever. Printing in color was a luxury. But dammit, we were happy! We didn’t have to update our antivirus software every day. We didn’t have to run spyware scans regularly, or worry about the Windows registry getting corrupted. Our computers worked, by and large, because the operating systems stayed out of our way and let us use the applications that we wanted to use.
Now, in the Internet era, everyone’s using Facebook and Twitter and web-based email. No one cares how they access Facebook, as long as they can access Facebook. Regular people might have a minor preference for Microsoft Internet Explorer, or Mozilla Firefox, but at the end of the day no one’s going to not use Facebook just because the computer they’re using doesn’t have their favorite browser installed.
And here’s where Google’s Chrome OS represents a significant shift. To do stuff on Facebook, or other hosted applications, you don’t need all the hooplah of a traditional desktop computer. You don’t need a “real” computer with gobs of local storage. Facebook is your storage. Google Docs is your storage. You don’t need a device with Bluetooth to check your Windows Live email. You don’t need a full operating system, you just need a browswer. If you can pare down the OS, you can pare down all the requisite crap that we’ve come to associate with modern (Windows-based) computers. If you don’t have a full OS, what do you need a virus scanner for? Why do you need user accounts on the computer if the sites to which you connect enforce user accounts and permissions for you? Why do you need to constantly update your operating system with patches? Because it’s a complex, multi-purpose device. It doesn’t need to be, though. A single-purpose appliance (like the CrunchPad!) is more economical for the casual Internet user. It will be less frustrating for the end user because it will get in their way less. The user will be able to do stuff without being interrupted by the operating system.
Obviously, there will always be a need for traditional computers. If thin clients were the be-all-end-all of the computing world, someone like Citrix would have long ago replaced Microsoft as the dominant player. The appliance model doesn’t work for people who need to work while in an airplane, for example. Businesses, entrepeneurs, and freelancers will still need local storage, and the ability to work without network access. Parents may still want user accounts to restrict what their kids can and can’t do. But for a huge population of computer users, Google’s Chome OS — and no doubt countless hangers-on that will follow — provides everything they need.
Very well written. There’s an obvious paradigm shift in the definition of OS with the Chrome OS coming out and I think you nailed why it’s so important to make sure that definition is… well… defined.
Above is a great example of a poorly constructed sentence and I apologize about that. Hopefully my point still gets across :)
This is the internet, so good sentence structure and proper spelling are not important.
Internet apps can do very similar things to desktop apps. Bitlet for example is a web based Bittorent client written in java .
http://www.bitlet.org/
Aviary is a Flash based image editor
http://aviary.com/home
And there are many other examples so why do we need the desktop computer anymore ????
“Businesses, entrepeneurs, and freelancers will still need local storage, and the ability to work without network access.”
I suspect this requirement will be accommodated by the Chrome OS:
- Web apps can be designed to function offline, with HTML5. There is an HTML5 demo of Gmail here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmjxmOtNZCk
- Secure filesystem access can potentially be granted to web apps.
- Native Client will hopefully allow downloaded executables to be cached, for future (offline) use.
Why people SUCK google all the time?
Even the “revolutionaries” of FLOSS, open-sourcy guys do not think twice before promoting the corporation to make even more money, be even more powerful?
What type of hysteria is this?
When you get Photoshop/Lightroom/Premiere going in the cloud call me. Until then I’ll keep my 64bit i7
Exactly, Scott. Thin clients, internet devices, whatever you want to call it, that’s the direction. That’s kinda what people (that I know at least) thought they were getting with a “netbook”. Now they actually may be getting what they want and what all of us “family tech supports” wanted them to have in the first place…
Scott 1, John 0
What about the 100 GB of music, pictures, and videos everyone has on their computers?
I like Linux, and I think this new Google OS will have its place – but for some reason I can’t put my finger on, I hate the idea of leaving everything in the cloud. I think part of it is that I don’t like the idea of my personal data existing somewhere out of my reach, and somewhere I have no control over.
My computer blazes through pretty much whatever I throw at it, and I love that. I like having my apps on my computer – I don’t want to be tethered to the internet any more than I already am.
I dont think that there is anything wrong in the article, but it saddens to see it nevertheless.
JB wrote a perfectly sensible article, which was like a breath of fresh air. Believe me, when it comes to consumer products, its the consumers, and not the critics, who decide the fate.
Has anyone seen the Chrome OS working on a netbook? Is it not a bit overboard to make sweeping predictions at this juncture without having any empirical evidence?
Chrome OS may turn out to be the best thing to have ever happened to humanity, but for that to happen, Chrome OS has to happen first.
Whats happening to you guys? I thought TC was ACTUALLY unbiased. That perception is starting to change.
Devin wrote a “third opinion” yesterday that more or less echoed what you said: let’s wait till it comes out before we proclaim it the Second Coming or call it a piece of junk that’ll be dead on arrival.
http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/07/08/a-third-opinion-on-google-chrome/
I predict that in 5 years, after this whole cloud computing fad fades, “Pebble” computing will become all the rage. Key points will be:
1.) Tired of sharing computing power with other users? Pebble computing puts all the power you want back into your hands, by allowing you to install and run applications directly from your own computer!
2.) Tired of trying to understand which applications must be run while connected to the internet and those that don’t? Pebble computing makes it simple to run all applications directly from your computer while connected to the internet or not!
3.) Tired of paying monthly fees to use software? Pebble computing will put the power back into your hands, by allowing you to install applications directly on to your computer and use them as long as you want!
4.) Tired of your cloud service provider upgrading their services automatically, forcing you to do deal with buggy new software releases? Pebble computing allows you to decide when to update and when not to!
Pebble computing is the future.
You sir, are a visionary and a prophet.
Seriously, “cloud computing” has existed for years. Anyone reading this use SalesForce? Cloud computing. Gmail? Cloud computing. Its nothing new, its just a buzz word.
Didn’t you get the memo, Mr. Bonafortuna? Cloud computing is the future whether you like it or not! Anyone who denies this fact obviously hates Freedom.
All it’ll take is one serious Google goof–Gmai accounts losing mail left and right, Google Docs eating precious presentations–before people will be all, “How silly were we to hand over all of our data to some Server in the Sky.”
You still need a virus scanner because if a hacker owns your netbook they can install a keyboard sniffer and own your interweb passwords.
You still need software updates because your browser, your OS and your drivers will all ship with bugs that need to get fixed. Do you really want to surf the web without the latest Flash patches?
You still need user accounts and logon protection for your netbook for the same reason that phones do — because otherwise as soon as you lose the thing anyone who picks it up can access all of your saved passwords.
Paring the OS down for faster boot and better perf on low spec hardware is interesting, but Win7 and Mac OS are already doing that. It’s not clear why this new Linux distro should fare better than any of the existing ones in convincing consumers that a moderately faster boot is worth giving up all of the free stuff that they know and love with their existing OS.
No, you don’t need a virus scanner. The Linux kernel and its security model is more resilient to attack than Windows. And by having a slimmed-down operating system which does less — and can do less overall — the appeal of attacking a system running such an OS would be dramatically less.
If your computer appliance does less, there’s less bugs that will need to be fixed. You don’t need a robust OS with driver support for lots and lots of peripherals. You need a modular OS with drivers for the specific hardware in the appliance. There may be updates, but they’d be far fewer than what we see now. How often do updates come out for your mobile phone?
Having a password to access your internet appliance is certainly a good idea, but that’s a lot different from supporting multiple user accounts.
I know many people who will leap at the opportunity to have a reliable, stable appliance with which to access the internet. They don’t need peripherals: they need access to the online services they use every day.
Wow. I disagree with every sentence you just wrote. Respectfully;
Virus protection will always be necessary for large ecosystems of computers, despite whether the computers in those ecosystems are dumb or smart. All the baddies want is a large install base of computers smart enough to report what you do and take directions remotely.
Software updates will always be required, even for the light weight systems because people are always attempting to do more and more with less and less. Peripherals are not dead my friend. Geotagging, voice recognition, cameras, video cameras, music players, remote controls for media players, finger scanners, etc. Something will always be around that requires driver support.
Password protection is MORE important with a mobile, network-dependent device, as Jamie pointed out above. And because every cloud service will likely have multiple different systems for handling credentials, and not all of them will be secure, you’ll probably use the same password for all of them. And because of this, you’ll want to be sure you’re not being keylogged, hence more security software.
You’re talking about people jumping through hoops to go backwards, to the days when our fathers sat at dumb terminals connected to a mainframe. It doesn’t make any sense because it is a rose-colored Utopian solution to an imaginary problem.
My opinion of the chrome OS from what little bit I have read about it is the following:
I imagine an OS that is big enough to run a web browser. Typical web browser have the option to store websites to let you view them “off line” when your online, it can check for a new version of the page and update what is stored on it. I suspect the apps in the cloud may end up doing the same. Getting an update for the off line version of google docs would happen the next time a user logs into the google docs website. With that said there will be updates that would have to be downloaded and applied to the machine for the OS and the browser but potentially not for all the apps that are in the cloud. Updates for those would happen seamlessly.
It could get to a point when a netbook running chrome OS is acting flakey or running poorly that consumers will be able to buy a new one for a reasonable price. Even today I know people that will go out and buy a new cheap computer when they start to have problems with their current one. Why pay a few hundred dollars to take a sick PC in the shop to get fixed when you can buy a whole new PC for a few hundred bucks. If chrome consists of just enough OS to run a web browser and talk to a network card or cellular radio for internet on the go then it would run on less hardware that would be cheaper to make….. like cell phones. I imagine too they may end up getting subsidized by cellular providers like cell phones are currently.
Look at the android G1 phone, ink a 2 year contract for phone and data get a big break on the cost of the phone. Pay a little extra each month and if it does break, the cellular provider will fix it or replace it.
With google going the open source route with it, anyone would be able to make it better to meet their needs which could benefit everyone. This is something that the microsofts and apples of the world currently aren’t doing with their OSes and browsers.
http://www.google.com/search?q=linux%20critical%20vulnerability&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&tab=nw
People don’t care about their cars and computers? Dude, you need to quit smoking that crap and find yourself another career. You don’t seem too smart, really.
You do need access to printers/card readers/Cameras etc. Becuase that is the very point of accesing the web, to share our stuff. Unless you want it to be a one-way communication like fm-radio/eNewspaper.
I had nasty experience trying to access my xd-card / card-readers from linux PCs. I wonder how crunchpad/Google/Palm will go about solving this problem? Any IDEAs?
Maybe they will follow the iPhone model, which means you will still need a regular PC and iTunes like software to synce the web-tablet with the contents in the regular PC? or maybe the future will be all wi-fi enabled devices which can talk to each other without any driver/software installations?
?????