While you won’t be able to sense it at first, expect to feel a high frequency buzz from the direction of Redmond in the next few months. That’s the Windows 7 and Office group fearing the rise of a new juggernaut on low-cost computing hardware, ChromeOS.
ChromeOS may not be powerful, it may not play Far Cry and it may not run Microsoft Office but it’s a game changer. The underpowered laptops that limped along under Vista, XP, or 7 will fly under a new ChromeOS regime and thin-and-light laptops will fall below the vaunted $199 mark as the so-called “Microsoft Tax” – basically the small cost manufacturers pay for OEM licenses – disappears.
I’ve been saying for most of this year that Android will replace Windows Mobile as the “default” smartphone operating system. Thus far, if a manufacturer didn’t have their own OS or wasn’t in bed with a certain provider, they chose Windows Mobile. That operating system is still popular with a certain subset of user, namely users with lazy IT departments or computer owners cursed with the inability to download and install odd syncing software. Android will change all that.
The same will come to pass for lower-end hardware solutions, solutions where Windows or Windows CE were once standard.
My prediction is this: netbooks, as we know them, will come with ChromeOS as a boot option. Ultrathin laptops (think the Dell Adamo or the HP Envy 13) will come with Windows 7. Netbook configuration, then, will consist of entering your IMAP and SMTP info, a few social media credentials, and maybe uploading a picture of your dog as a background image. The rest – installing apps, buying games (other than Android/ChromeOS games), and running Microsoft Office – will be gone, thrust into the cloud.
I’m usually a pessimist. I’m not when it comes to something like ChromeOS. This is just what Asian OEMs are looking for – a respected software stack for their underpowered hardware.
And to correct you, It WILL play Farcry. http://www.onlive.com
Please let’s be realistic :
the only way this Chrome OS has to get some market share is a $99 netbook at Wallmart…
What’s wrong with cheap? The browser on a 99 dollar Chrome OS laptop will work just as fine as on a 400 dollar Intel/Microsoft netbook.
CrunchPad with Chrome OS anyone?
Why do you think Mike has has been hanging back with his CrunchPad launch?
Zeepkist you are right ! Arrington that’s the way to go…
The CrunchPad + Chrome OS for $299 at BestBuy would be the Apple iTablet killer ($800-$1000 will be too much even for an Apple fanboy like me)
I feel netbooks are fad. Mainly it were about abolishing a dvd drive, reducing the bulk and cost. Now even high end notebooks come without dvd drive and instead as usb plug in accessory. As for small screens, mobile phone screen got bigger with abolition of keyboard.
Actually the chrome OS is perfect for intranet terminals.
Some companies spend thousands of dollars on locking down windows terminals so users can only access the browser anyway.
Onlive + Cloud Computing = No More OS Dependencies
The first comment on OnLive was funny, this one was just sad.
Don’t forget an underpowered Netbook will still need a decent graphic chipset, not to handle 3D graphics, but to handle HD. I think there is only one or two Netbooks out there that can handle true HD.
Also, don’t forget that Onlive may still require some sort of download like a Onlive player or something. This would nod not be OS independent. Sort of like Doom Live or Battlefield Heros that pretend they are browser games.
wait and see my friends…
huh? it will not … dumn head.. why? because at the link you provide it specifically states Windows OS…
we are talking about a new OS here..
as for the post, You want facts? “what if your browser was your operating system. new OS no kernel, no all…. BIOS was redesigned?”
It’s like they made a mobile OS and applied in a computer
See the Chrome’s detailed review: http://bit.ly/google-chrome-os-best-or-worst-judge-it
I might try it when it goes live. But it won’t stay on my machine long. I can’t justify turning it into “just an internet” machine. Even if that is all I really use it for.
That’s why it won’t be available for you to just download and try. It will only be available on new netbooks, as it’s quite tied to the hardware (at least at first).
It’s all open source. I’m sure that there will be versions that will install on any plain old netbook, just like hackers (and Acer) have done with Android.
Naw, I don’t think so there Johnny:
XP is showing up on phones and this thing is even gearing to take Windows 7 http://www.xpphone.com/en/index.html
Until I can play 1080p video, listen to music and play some games.. Chrome OS will end up another BeOS.
What makes you think it won’t play 1080p video? That’s mostly a function of HW decoder support + device driver these days, if these underpowered netbooks come with GPUs with H.264 acceleration, then the HTML5 element in Chrome will play it back at 1080p just like any other operating system.
They already demoed music listening, so scratch that.
And with WebGL or NativeClient + OpenGL, you’ll be able to play games as well. I mean, don’t expect the thing to compete with a notebook containing the latest NVidia or AMD hardware, it’s not targeted at that. But will it be able to do games on par with what you see on the iPhone? Casual games? Puzzle Games? Farmville? The answer is yes.
So, yes, Microsoft, be very afraid, of kids especially, growing up with compact netbooks that don’t expose them to Windows.
“They already demoed music listening, so scratch that.” a low-fi stream of a single song.. whooray?
The fact of the matter is, I can see a few of these units for $149 in Best Buy in about a year sitting next to $299 Windows 7 computers.
I can also see how customers will pass over this Chrome OS device as it will be looked at how a Zune is looked at when it sits next to an iTouch.
Sure this will work for a small niche but no way will it beat the Mac market and for damn sure will not even touch Windows.
You and me may be accustomed to playing songs from our hard drives, but legions of people now access music straight from the net, with sites such as Pandora, Last.fm, and Grooveshark.
naw man, the people buying netbooks right now (myself included) arnt looking for a macbook. their looking for that small machine that is Light and easy to pull out on a train or in a plane while inbetween tasks,
they dont want something to valuable that will stay in a bag untill they have a desk in front of them. they want something they can whip out, get some thoughtless use out of, and boom throw it right back into the bag and walk off the train/bus/what ever
i think webOS will only be compared to other netbooks, not desktops and not macbooks. just because of the price difference between a macbook and a netbook, any one looking at a netbook with any operating system has already crossed mac off their list.
*edit* ChromeOS
A 149$ full end laptop with decent software as long as you decent connectivity? Yeah, I think that will trounce the casual laptop market. Will it get great share? No, MSFT has too much share, in order for it to do so it would have to compete at the business level, and I think that it is pretty obvious that those guys won’t go to chrome.
So I think that while Chrome OS may not be the right OS/netbook for you, it sure as hell will get sales, and help to drive prices in netbooks down.
I wonder how/if this will affect the launch price of the iTablet…
Hey,
Can I tell you something? My kids (3 and 5) don’t even see the face of Windows.
I don’t use the computer for anything but internet. And you?
Time is money. Keep it simple (and cheap). The Chrome OS is simple, fast and cheap.
That has been the key of sucess for a long time. Microsoft can’t compete with that. People in Redmond need to reinvent yourselfs.
Will be great for kids I agree.
You make one good point, why give morons a great computer when they only want crap to surf the Internet. As for Microsoft, they definately can compete with that, and will likely dominate that. You are the one who needs to reinvent yourself, from loud mouthed uninformed mouth breathing idiot to an educated respectful person who knows to keep their mouth shut when they don’t know what they are talking about.
BeOS wasn’t so bad, didn’t Apple derive their MacOS family from it?
You’re right BeOS was not bad, but your reasoning goes into the opposite, since you took Apple as an example .P
NeXtStep
No, Mac OS X comes out of NeXT, the operating system developed by Steve Jobs after he was effectively ousted from Apple in 1985. Some say, however, that OS X was the operating system that BeOS could have been.
Apple made Be an acquisition offer planning to turn BeOS into OS X but Be’s CEO Gassee played hardball, bargained for more money, then lost out to Next when Jobs swooped in and used his patented reality distortion field on Apple’s board. How different the current tech landscape would look today if Gassee had said yes to Apple’s initial offer.
Yeah Apple would be dead. Steve’s RDF is the reason apple is alive today. I would be running Ubuntu thats for sure.
Jim
Chrome OS will come with the Flash Player which can play 1080p video and with Flash Player 10.1 can use the GPU so that it plays smoothly on really low powered netbooks. There’s also a huge number of casual Flash games out there.
However, I personally think there will still be a lot of people who have issues going everything in the cloud, especially for students who would like to store video and music files on their netbook.
I was hoping to see something more like Adobe AIR, where a web application gets installed natively so that the guts of the program don’t need to be downloaded every time, only new data. This also makes offline access a lot more manageable. Because if the web application hasn’t already been loaded and open in a tab on ChromeOS I don’t think offline access would work.
1080p video is already on YouTube. That’s old news at this point.
Oh, I’m sure ultrathin laptops such as the Macbook Air will run Windows 7.
oh you know what i meant, dude
I see where John is going and it makes alot of sense, there is no reason to have a full OS on a netbook you only use as a casual second computer to surf the net.
However, when given the choice between Windows 7 and a lightweight Linux build I still put Windows 7 on my netbook. It’s human nature that we want the possibility to do everything even if we never use it. I think I’ve only used Office on my netbook once, but for that reason I couldn’t imagine being stuck without it. So I don’t really think Redmond is shaking in their boots although I do think they’ll be paying close attention.
I think the ideal solution would be to have Chrome as your quick-boot and Win7 as a full OS on a dual boot system, but from today’s announcements Chrome doesn’t seem to want to work that way. I hope more clarification will be forthcoming in the next year before it releases.
You paid $200 for Office and used it once? Not very wise.
Probably not.
But I agree MS isn’t shaking yet, but they are paying very close attention, everyone is. Cloud computing is still in the early adoption phase. It will be a good long while before we have the network where you never have to worry about being somewhere without internet. I mean, we still have dead zones in CELL PHONE coverage! I am not even talking about 3G, just the talk. Until then I would much prefer to have my “stuff” with me. And I dislike netbooks… but google did say they wanted COS on LARGER netbooks, which is something I could deal with.
Jim
When they slice your head there’s a string holding your two ears together. Cut it and your ears fall off.
Definitely no brain in there.
Frankly, I prefer OS X on my Air!
But, Chrome is primed to take over large segments of the market. An OS X based tablet would be quite nice at a decent price point, and the Chrome browser would suffice in that instance.
I am looking at education, and need a tablet that can be customized to provide a decent experience for a first grader. Can Chrome fit the need. I don’t think that an iTablet would scale cost-wise, but am prototyping in that profile.
@Nicholas:
> Frankly, I prefer OS X on my Air!
Frankly, that’s not interesting – much less, particularly useful. And I question whether it is even germane.
Am I nuts, or are most Apple fans unable to take themselves out of the equation, even for just a few minutes? Could it be too much of a stretch, conceptually? Just curious.
This is going to scare shot out of MS. The only cash cow they had, google wants it on thanksgiving!
I think Office is also a cash cow
and Xbox
Err, no. Xbox barely just started to be profitable for them, and not by a large margin. Windows and Office are by far Microsoft’s main profit makers.
I don’t think MS is scared, but I’m damn sure they won’t ignore the threat. This is their main source of revenue, and they’ll claw and bite anyone who gets near it.
Google is the Juggernaut, b**ch!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSuvOVH0aSQ
Nice comma placement, correct +/- 1 word:
“netbooks, as we know, them will come with ChromeOS as a boot option.”
Heh, I kind of like it that way. It’s just John writing in dialect.
DIdn’t you guys notice what Microsoft is doing in the cloud (check the PDC keynotes). MS Office will run in a browser, they have SharePoint Online, Azure etc. Worst case scenario: they will loose some OS market share, but they do have a cloud story.
Microsoft will definately not lose any market share to chrome. It will gain more. Currently windows dominates over Linux on netbooks. If google has success establishing a chrome os market sector, microsoft will step in with a similar os, and will dominate there as well. Google is creating more opportunites for microsoft. Open your eyes.
By the way, where are larry lessig and his anti microsoft Erin ‘crock of shit’ brokovich cronies and their class action law action insisting that the browser and os must be seperate?
Agreed. I use Office Live workspace for school work and now have access to some office apps in my SkyDrive however there is something to be said for local copies of files and the horsepower I get from
The hardware restrictions are going to kill it. I have no doubt Chrome OS has a place on the crunchpad but I don’t see it on netbooks. Maybe more internet appliance like items.
They refused to discuss it but I bet Chrome will integrate with Android within 2 years:
Step 1: launch SOMETHING
Step 2: Make something into something better
Step 2 will be the REALLY interesting part. Gathering some Chrome enthusiasts so come join us at:
http://intochrome.com/forum
its just a new linux distro. just for your information, OEMs already sell netbooks much cheaper with linux, but in usa and europe seems that big retail stores and oems sell only machines with windows. the only big thing behind chrome os is the google name behind, the rest is just hype. here is the perfect fanboy useless gadget, apple tablet running chrome os… lol
I don’t think Chrome OS is suited to netbooks – actually the trend in netbooks is to make them more capable, not less. And Windows 7 runs great even on older netbooks, nevermind the ones that will be out a year from now. For the first time Microsoft has launched a new OS that actually is less resource-intensive than the previous generation, and that means it’s going to be on a lot more devices, not just reserved for the highest-spec new machines.
What Chrome OS might be good for, if there’s even a market for this sort of thing, is the tablet market. On those devices there is no expectation that they will be used for work, and they will always being at home connected to the network, and will always be the 2nd or 3rd PC in any home. These devices are already starting to use Android, and if Chrome OS is more suitable they’ll probably just use that instead. But despite all the hype over all these tablets coming out, I really just don’t see them as a huge market. I guess we’ll see, but I personally think that this latest plan by Google is not a step in the direction of ruling the world, even if that’s what they were hoping.
I’m sorry, but how well have linux based netbooks done up against windows? Reasonably, but not game-changingly….
I see no reason why Chrome OS should be any different…
I thought Android was “just another mobile Linux distro” but Google’s name will change that.
I’m getting a Droid, but not because it Google’s name is a part of it. Because its OS is user-friendlier than WinMo or Symbian and is standard on many phones now, so I only have to target a single mobile OS.
I was waiting to buy my new laptop (not netbook) … now I can do so, and in two years see where Google is on ChromeOS. I still need a few fat clients for now, such as Eclipse.
while there are a lot of things (mostly in terms of internal engineering) to like about the chrome os, i am not totally convinced that its the best approach for developing front end for cloud applications/services… i believe that apps require rich development platform on the device that exploits its hardware capabilities and provide much richer user experience, natural interaction (speech, touch, visual, etc.), and both online/offline access… chrome os seems to completely omit this and bets on pure-cloud based model which in my opinion is very limited in terms of use cases it solves…
Johnny boy, whatever you are smoking is some fine shit! Where can I get that?
TechCrunch is and always been a crappy ass technews website. You prove it right again. TechCrunch needs to get some real journalists…
This “offline storage” type of business for local files seems awfully limited.
Raise your hand if you have mp3’s on your computer. Or photos from your camera. Or video. Or private documents you don’t want to toss into the internet, no matter how safe it is supposed to be.
Ok, everyone with your hands up, I will be surprised if this OS can handle your needs.
So, everyone else – raise your hand if you use dial-up, or if you use a laptop and aren’t always near an internet connection.
You guys will probably want to stay away from this OS, too.
So, who’s left? I guess it’s those people who have only saved a handful of MS Office docs, none of them being particularly private, and don’t use digital cameras or music players, and always have a high-speed internet connection.
Why do you people have always-on high speed internet if you don’t use your computer for anything?
This is for netbooks, it’s not intended to replace your primary computer. Sergey has explained quite clearly the niche they are trying to fill. Also, user habits are changing and they’re betting on the fact that this will continue, eg. all-you-can-eat monthly music subscriptions so there’s no need to store any mp3’s on your PC.
@ Joe Stoner:
As a matter of fact, I have no files on my netbook, just applications. My music is on my iPod. My movies, photos, and documents are on a flash drive because I regularly use four computers. And if I need a file from my iMac, I log on and grab it wirelessly.
In fact, I didn’t even install printer drivers. I installed Boujour and print wirelessly to the iMac.
You can do a lot via WiFi without resorting to the cloud.
DGF
When the computer comes with free internet i’ll consider it until then nope.
The areas I go to have crap coverage and I can not always get free wifi so there is no reason to make me get this I don’t care if they paid me if I cant get anything done without a connection than no.
Please provide economics to back up this claim. My understanding is that the cost of Windows is such a small percentage of the cost of the PC these days that this “value play” is not enough to do the trick for Chrome OS.
Nice article, but I think you’re ignoring a big part of the market: businesses. There’s no viable online alternative to Office, or at least Excel, and there are plenty of legacy applications companies will just not be able to let go of.
In the consumer market? Maybe. But Microsoft will still do OK.
Microsoft might fix the Excel problem themselves by making Office Live more full-featured.
There’s no online alternative to Excel because until now, we haven’t really needed one. Now that we will, someone will make one. (OO Calc is open source, right? Well, there’s the basic idea, now just make one for the Tubes.)
I love the idea, supper light; instant on, etc. But an OS that doesn’t work without an internet connection is useless to the type of people who buy laptops or even nettops.
Sooner or later your going to fall off the grid or get in a plane, probably sooner.
Good luck with that,
“thin-and-light laptops will fall below the vaunted $199 mark”
I seem to remember hearing the crunchpad was going to be there also…
I have a Droid and if it is any indiction what Google will deliver in Chrome, Microsoft has some breathing room. Droid is cumbersome at times and I just had my first crash, sort of a blue screen of death on the device. Looks like it might seem easier than it really is to create an OS.
Nice concept, but I want to use my own web browser. I bet Mozilla is happy…
Sounds good in theory, but Google specifically said that they’re aiming for the same price points that we’re seeing in current netbooks. It may be open source, but I don’t think we’re going to see much cheaper netbooks out of this. Not to mention it’s at least a year away.
I do not agree with you. The way I see it is Google is investing time and money for 0.01% market share in the PC market. Do the ad revenues from that market share cover the expenses and future pain of Google? I doubt that very much.
With Android, they have a chance to go beyond the 0.01% market share because the smartphone industry is re-shaping every day. Not the PC industry, and I strongly doubt that Google will be a trend setter, or a reinventer in this field.
You forget a few really interesting points presented by Google and not mentioned:
- what about when you’re offline? It is a full online machine
- what about if don’t want to buy new hardware? What about installing on your current netbook?
- they said 40m netbooks sold this year. How many with Linux and not with Windows (those, you say, including the “Microsoft Tax”) ? And how many people keep Linux and don’t go for the pirated/purchased Windows copies?
- Netbooks are overrated. In poorer countries, that is THE computer in the house. Google sais no apps? Who are you kidding, they will play FarCry with minimum details if they can. And they require Windows to do it. And they will install pirated Windows, I assure you.
- they seem not to understand how people in the real life (not in their campus) use their computers. All my Mac friends never (or rarely) shut down their machine to require all those steps Google said today. They close the lid and they open the lid. Time to go online? Less than 5 seconds (same as Chrome OS). I have a Dell laptop PC with Windows 7. I rarely shut it down. Close the lid and open the lid. Time between open lid and being online is 8 seconds (it’s password protected). So, where is the gain in speed they so much talked about?
- they said Chrome, the browser, is used by 40m people as their main internet browser. Their October market share is 3.6% – this actually has a chance to gain a bit more. But in the PC market? Come on…. really?
Google runs an ad business, based on a search engine. Period. Let’s keep that in mind when we see things which appear to be great innovations in OSes coming from Google. Chrome OS is nothing but a stripped down Linux.
If people are running this os Google will know everything done on it and through that they can have a lot of leverage if they choose to act upon it.
think about this; since the browser is the os.
Google could get a list of
names, email address, addresses,
personal info such as documents/photos/financial
ssn, likes, dislikes, communication info, business info (if a business was to use this, but very very doubtly)
We already know it will be phoning home since everything is in the cloud.
plus more just like Apple or Microsoft could do if they damn well pleased plus the fact that Google is an AD company also they could target things to their consumers to there exact desire.
This idea of the Chrome OS sounds like a wet dream for an AD company
My prediction: ChromeOS will grab 10-12% OS market share from MS in the Netbooks category. The other 75% of netbook users will demand the offline use of the hard drive and the ability to use higher-resource intensive applications from operating systems like Win, Linux, or Mac.
I mean other 90%…
“The underpowered laptops that limped along under Vista, XP, or 7 will fly under a new ChromeOS regime”
ChromeOS’s javascript + HTML/CSS platform is intrinsically a lot slower than natively-coded apps. If Google writes a bunch of apps better suited to the limitations of netbooks then they may well ‘fly’, but not because of anything ChromeOS does.
Windows 7 runs as fast if not faster then Windows XP on my “underpowered” net book. The hardware isn’t getting any slower…
Microsoft has nothing to worry about. This will be nothing more than a nerd OS…just like “regular” linux. There is no way a “normal” user will ever use something like this.
Yeah, people hate things that are cheap or free. That’s why Walmart was such a dismal failure.
Can’t wait to see $99 or lower 13″ netbook running ChromeOS on the market.
TechCrunch is a Microsoft hater. I never see good news about Microsoft on this blog. You must be getting paid by Microsoft enemies to do this.
so Google OS is basically a $199 browser
No, Google OS is basically a free browser that can run your entire $199 computer, provided it is connected to the net.
It seems to me that this move by Google is kinda dependent on developers moving more towards web apps. Since we are already seeing this trend even in areas where we might not have considered it even a year or two ago (try live, graphically intensive video games, microsoft office, etc), I think Google has pretty good insight and are developing their OS to fully take advantage of where technological trends are heading. There are definitely going to be some growing pains while fat clients transition to the cloud/web app architecture, but it’s all definitely possible. I can definitely envision a webapp version of eclipse, for example…and i’m sure the people over there can as well and are probably acting on that vision
Watch out for Microsoft’s ability to tear the helmet off of juggernaut and launch a mental attack ;-)
Windows is no longer relevant today. The whole industry is going for the cloud and the browser Os (Chrome OS). Microsoft cash cow look worst than ever.
I’ll stick with Windows 7 on my (pre-release) Acer 1820PT. This thing gets over 9 hours of battery life, when actually being used with WiFi. Why would I want to dual boot into a Google-centric version of Linux, when Win7 can handle all that, plus give me access to all the other tools I need, as somebody who actually USES a computer for work on the go?
The cloud is only as effective as its availability. Ironically, when flying through the clouds at 30000 ft is when the ‘cloud’ is least likely to be available.
hoe sit down… google is doom
Sure are a lot of instant experts posting here with firm positions on ChromeOS when they’ve clearly never used Linux and apparently don’t know what Gears does.
For those not following the music closely: Google Gears lets a browser-based app maintain a local data store that automatically syncs with the cloud when you’re online, and Just Works when you’re offline. You can use Google Docs on an airplane. I’ve done it. Not a problem.
To those who think it won’t run on a variety of hardware: I looked briefly under the hood of ChromeOS. It’s Ubuntu/Debian Linux, which runs on just about anything, including the cheap ARM chips that power smartphones. It’s been stripped of its normal UI and equipped with a minimalist window manager tuned for the Chrome browser.
To the guy who was saying it won’t do multimedia: Are you nuts? Have you looked at a cellphone in the last five years? Not a problem.
To the guy who won’t be impressed until they’re shrinkwrapped at Walmart for $99: Don’t get too cocky. That just may be the target.
Personally I’m not in any hurry to give up my Ubuntu Gnome desktop, all my native apps, and especially not Firefox with all the extensions I expect to have at my fingertips. (Even though I’m posting this with a Chrome browser.)
But I can see the immense disruptive potential here.
It was only a matter of time 4 them to flop @ something google and this is it. All that hipe 4 this shit that runs only online. I feel sorry 4 those on dail up. Microsoft must be mighty pleased with this one coz they have nothing to worry about. This gonna be just another linux that when people have enough they will wipe it of and put windows, oh l 4got google made sure we cant do that by not putting a hard drive.
People are still on dial-up?
what about people in a train / plane or on the go where they dont have internet access ? Thats a typical usage scenario for netbooks and in that case you sit in front of a totally useless brick where you cant even login.
John,
Good write-up -
The only disagreement is that smartbooks will kill the netbooks –
first off, my netbook is my smartphone. i use it to check email, play a game or check the weather. I use winmo 6.5 btw… i just dont get the netbook craze that google is holding on to. i am not saying that there OS is good or bad because i dont know, but i dont think the market that they are going after will be around. the majority of the time, i use my home laptop to connect to my work laptop through remote desktop, which runs major desktop / web applications. i dont know how google can compete with that. the web isnt always the answer.
Google chrome is perfect for my parents who only access the computer for web surfing..
For those of who use multiple PC’s for our business; that hate installing, updating and coordinating versions of software [ex: Office + Windows]; and keep our apps, documents, calendars, email, and contacts in the cloud, Chrome OS will be terrific.
The future is web applications with large local caches to avoid wasting bandwidth for data and code that don’t change often. And of course, seamless, encrypted storage of data in the cloud.
It should be possible to buy a client computer and use it without even thinking about backup.
If you experience a disaster, you ought to be able to pick up a new machine, get authenticated and return to where you were while the machine syncs your data and apps.
You ought to be able to travel without carrying a computer. Just borrow one and boot from a flash drive.
Google should just stick with Android. Android already has thousands of apps and will get even more cool apps. People want lots of apps and Chrome won’t be able to benefit from any of it. It’s like the Palm WebOS strategy, which isn’t taking off.
Chrome OS is a joke, I would take an internet tablet over Chrome OS any day. The place this going to pull new users is from linux users and maybe college kids on a budget. I don’t need to kneel and bow to the Google stack, Google Search, Gmail, You Tube, Google Maps, Google Docs, Picassa etc my web experience is much broader than that. People think they will attack Microsoft, Chrome OS will attack everyone else first. I remember when Linux was going to kill off Microsoft, Chrome OS is a toy.
I remember when people considered Linux a “toy.” Don’t know about you, but it’s been a seriously long time since I’ve heard anyone talk about running Windows on a server.
maybe you should check your average large enterprise? you might actually find a lot of server’s running windows.
Nope, lots of AIX, Solaris, and Red Hat Linux. Even OpenVMS. Windows Server sucks.
50% on the net runs on Linux :P
Blasphemy. All hail the Google Stack!
Checking out the inner documentation i found out the Chrome OS is based on ubuntu, check it out here with pics
I call it GooBuntu
http://thetechnologycafe.com/google-chrome-os-is-ubuntu-based-screenshot-with-sourcecode/
maybe its inconsequential, but i will like to remark that most of India can only afford chrome OS loaded devices..its definitely a game changer when you account for 300 million new people getting online by 2020. Moreover India’s growth curve closely follows Google. For us, Microsoft feels like the second choice.
Netbook + ChromeOS is perfect for naive nontechnical users I know, the kind that cannot distinguish a text advertisement from the text of a news story, so they click on the links and generate revenue for Google.
Why buy a $99 – $199 netbook? after years of gadget overload we are finally consolidating to smartphone’s plus a desktop/laptop if required. Average users want ONE computer not one for every occasion.
As for the price point, why hasn’t linux on netbooks taking off? I use ubuntu NBR on my old acer tablet but has anyone heard of non-tech people using linux? I haven’t. To administer it it just isn’t as easy as windows.
I don’t think MS will be getting the razor blades out yet.
“has anyone heard of non-tech people using linux”
This is the justification for ChromeOS, a way to make Linux friendly-enough for naive, nontechnical users to use.
Your kinda missing the point. Google doesn’t care about Linux vs. Windows, or advancing Linux on the desktop. What they are doing is advancing the personal computing experience. The bet is that over the long term, the best experience will be achieved with applications in the cloud. The fact that it is Linux is a technical detail.
Even if Google doesn’t necessarily care about advancing Linux as an OS, it does have the nice benefit of coming with its own devoted fanbase that will be happy to work on ChromeOS’s open source code. Attracting more users to a Google product focused around Google cloud products makes it all a nice booster shot to Google’s everyday presence.
Someone has made the point that ChromeOS is simply Google’s way of directing traffic of the masses to their products, which I believe is a great point. People who buy the OS will be using the Google stack by default, increase its use will lead to Windows and Mac users trying the tools, which is what Google’s main goal is. Regardless of the OS, it’ll mean an increase in web traffic to their set of products.