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Topic: Google Chrome OS - Should Microsoft Worry?

Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 07-08-2009 01:22 PM

The folks at Google have formally announced they intend to market their own "Chrome OS" to compete directly with Microsoft Windows, as well as Apple's Mac OSX. A number of news websites are covering the story. Bloomberg ran a lengthy article, but here's one from the website of CNN/Money:

Google launches OS - calls out Microsoft

quote: David Goldman, CNN/Money
Internet giant challenges the software maker's main business with its new operating system.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Google Inc. is planning to hit Microsoft Corp. where it hurts by challenging the software giant's dominance in the world of computer operating systems.

The search firm said late Tuesday that it will begin offering its own operating system, called Chrome, in the second half of 2010.

While Google (GOOG, Fortune 500) already offers a host of products that compete with Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500), the new operating system is a direct challenge to Microsoft Windows, which is the most widely used operating system in the world.

"Google really can challenge Microsoft, because the proliferation of Web-based applications makes the operating system much less important," said Zeus Kerravala, analyst at Yankee Group. "As we pave the way towards real Web 2.0, there will be less of a real tie-in to Windows."

The new system will initially be targeted at netbooks, the company said. Netbooks are small, inexpensive laptop computers used mostly for Internet access.

Google said the new operating system will make use of open source programming, which allows third-party developers to design compatible add-ons. (Think of the applications created for the iPhone or Facebook.)

Many netbooks currently run a version of Linux, or Microsoft's old operating system, Windows XP. Microsoft has said its current Vista operating system is too big to run on the scaled-down laptops, but it said netbooks will be able to run its Windows 7 OS, set to debut in late October.

But Google thinks computers need a new operating system solution.

"We hear a lot from our users, and their message is clear: computers need to get better," Google said in a statement. Chrome is "our attempt to re-think what operating systems should be."

The new operating system comes after Google launched its Chrome Internet browser late last year.

-- CNNMoney.com staff writer David Goldman contributed to this report. To top of page
First Published: July 8, 2009: 7:26 AM ET

My own opinion is Google could do very well with its Chrome OS in the long term. But I think it will have a tough, uphill slog ahead of it for at least 3-5 years before it can start taking away significant market share from Windows.

We use computers to run applications. The operating system only provides the foundation on which those applications run. None of us buys a computer only to run Windows, OSX or Linux. That would be like buying a new house and not putting any furniture or appliances into it.

Google's business plan is to get us all into "cloud computing," using open source web-based applications that also feature a good amount of Google advertising coming along for the free ride. Simple tasks like word processing, e-mail and spread sheet work can be done on programs served remotely from the Internet. Casual users and certain business users might do just fine switching to a Chrome OS based PC.

It is far less practical to Internet-serve compute intensive applications that deal with graphics, video, gaming, etc. Several years from now most Internet users in the United States may be connecting with sustained speeds better than 30 million bits per second. Even then it will be impractical to run graphics heavy programs via the Internet. Tasks will still be completed much faster with the program installed on the local hard disc, especially if the application's hard disc foot print is measured in gigabytes.

In order for me to use Google's Chrome OS as a replacement for Windows on a traditional desktop or notebook computer software vendors like Adobe would have to offer versions of Photoshop, Illustrator, etc. compiled specifically for Chrome OS and offer a practical upgrade path for it. I don't see that happening anytime soon at all. I also don't see open source graphics applications like Gimp, Inkscape and Blender overtaking professional, commercial applications like Photoshop, Illustrator and Maya anytime soon at all either.

I can see Google's Chrome OS dominating the market for small "netbooks," making Linux more user friendly to the general public and possibly growing to dominate the software situation for cellular phones.

In the long term cell phones will become powerful enough to function as a fully featured portable computer, maybe even powerful enough to replace a traditional notebook or desktop system. Apple's iPhone is an obvious step in that direction, but the iPhone isn't powerful enough to run the same applications one would install on an iMac or Mac Pro Tower.

A few years from now that situation could be different. Place that portable computing device (it will no longer just be called a "phone") into a docking station on your desk to let it power a full size computer monitor, mouse and keyboard. We're still a few years from seeing that happen. The data capacity and processing power in the phones is still a long way from matching what you can get out of a notebook computer. And the Internet bandwidth is not nearly as fast as it should be. It's obvious Google, Apple and even Microsoft are trying to position themselves for that future.

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Mark Lensenmayer
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1605
From: Upper Arlington, OH
Registered: Sep 1999

posted 07-08-2009 02:08 PM

This is definitely an attempt to go after the netbook/small laptop market...possibly even some simple home desktop models. But not the high end of things for serious productivity users.

It looks like this will be built on LINUX, but using a new windowing system and having almost all applications live on the web...making the browser the only required software. Simple and fast...the exact opposite of Windows.

There is a market for this, and I think it will succeed. It will definitely not replace the MS operating systems.

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 07-08-2009 04:14 PM

I agree the Chrome OS obviously seems very much geared to net books as well as smart phones, which will definitely turn into a much bigger market than net books. However the folks in the mainstream press and even some in the technology press are spinning Google's OS as a doom and gloom product that will end Microsoft's OS dominance on traditional personal computers.

I think the whole net book thing is just a passing fad. If one can squeeze the performance and features of a net book down into a smaller, more portable form factor, like the size of a smart phone, that product might be more attractive to a much broader range of people. You can't hide a net book in your pocket. Net books merely strike me as the kind of product marketed for people who can barely afford to pay for electricity.

Chrome OS is supposed to be built on top of some form of Linux. It would be nice if the OS is able to support traditional desktop computing power use tasks that require applications installed on the local hard disc in addition to doing cloud based computing.

I think the traditional desktop computer is going to stick around in some form for quite a few more years. We could see a portable phone-like device become the "front end" of a modular dock that has the graphics engines, multi-core CPUs and disc capacity one needs for power use (not to mention wall outlet power). But you can save your work to the portable device and take it with you or even back it up to "the cloud" if you lose your device.

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Joe Redifer
You need a beating today

Posts: 12859
From: Denver, Colorado
Registered: May 99

posted 07-08-2009 05:59 PM

Oh man I can't wait! Surely this new OS will watch everything I do so it can feed that back to Google so companies can advertise to me more efficiently. What joy! I'm sure it will work perfectly with Photoshop and Final Cut Pro as well. Oh man sign me up NOW!

Cloud computing is retarded. Kind of hard to edit videos. And if my internet goes out I guess I'm fucked in the ass without lube. I don't think so. The internet isn't reliable enough for that. Even phone lines go down sometimes and they've been around for a thousand years.

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 07-08-2009 09:33 PM

Precisely.

The "sneaker network" still works without Internet. Of course, you're screwed if the electricity is gone, but the utility companies seem more determined to restore electrical power than ISPs are with restoring Internet access.

Microsoft doesn't have much to worry about with its core business, unless Apple delivers some sort of new master stroke that makes owning a Mac an absolute must for any computer user. I don't see any sign of that happening.

Still, stock investors absolutely demand that any publicly traded company deliver ever increasing amounts of profit from one successive quarter to the next. Microsoft isn't going to deliver that merely from selling copies of Windows or Microsoft Office. Everyone who needs those products already has it. There's little if any room for growth. However, there is room for growth in spreading Windows to smart phones, net books and other small, portable devices. Google and Apple are going to stand in the way of that.

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Joe Redifer
You need a beating today

Posts: 12859
From: Denver, Colorado
Registered: May 99

posted 07-08-2009 10:26 PM

Well, if the electricity is gone it is likely that you wouldn't be using anything more powerful than a laptop, but still.

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Galen Murphy-Fahlgren
Master Film Handler

Posts: 405
From: Canton, MI, USA
Registered: Oct 2007

posted 07-08-2009 11:36 PM

So, Google is going to repackage Linux for cloud computing, sort of like Linux already does pretty easily? What is the motivation for picking (and perhaps paying for) a Linux distro crammed with spy- and adware? So people can know how hip you are while Google steals your identity? Don't feed me that "Linux is too hard to use" bs, because many modern distros have GUI installers, and can be operated perfectly fine without opening a command line. The only argument I can think of against using Linux for cloud computing solutions is the monolithic kernel, and if Chrome is built on any Linux (or BSD, etc.), it will have the same architecture.

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 07-09-2009 09:51 AM

From what I've been able to tell, Google intends to offer its Google OS for free as well as make it an open source OS.

Certain flavors of Linux, such as Ubuntu, already come with user-friendly GUI interfaces. However, the real underlying issue is applications, not the OS itself. Google has some of its own applications that are very popular. Google also has a far more powerful brand name than any other company distributing Linux.

The combination of those two factors could convince a lot more mainstream computer users to adopt Google's flavor of Linux. That would result in more commercial software companies offering native coded versions of their applications for Google's OS.

Like it or not right now Linux is used almost exclusively by tech saavy users, whether they're IT professionals or self taught computer geeks. Not many casual users are farting around with Linux at all, even if something like Ubuntu is easy to use. If a casual user wants an alternative to Windows he usually buys a Mac.

People like me demand native coded versions of software. I'm not switching to Ubuntu if I have to run Photoshop in an emulated fashion. Emulation sucks. If Google has enough success with its flavor of Linux to get Adobe to create a native version of Photoshop for it then an OS switch for me might be a little more realistic. As it stands, the only alternative OS I see for my tasks is Mac OSX.

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Galen Murphy-Fahlgren
Master Film Handler

Posts: 405
From: Canton, MI, USA
Registered: Oct 2007

posted 07-10-2009 01:55 AM

Yeah, but if it is geared towards cloud computing, then the average user isn't going to be using lots of ram intensive applications. The only reason to cloud compute is for mobility, which means power consumption is a primary concern as well. As such, you aren't going to sitting around using the liquify tool in Photoshop. At some point, people are going to need to gain a better understanding of the tools they're using and learn how to choose them accordingly. I consider myself to be only a very basic user, and yet I can grasp the inherent strengths and weaknesses of numerous OS' and determine how my needs are best met. The only users who have an excuse to be unable to make such judgments are old people, because they are still flabbergasted by talkies and television, and their needs are simple, like reading the email their grandchildren don't send them (this is the new not calling) and printing pictures of their cats. I have a 486 running Windows NT that will do this for them.

To sum up my rambling, I'm skeptical that Google is going to provide any useful functionality that Linux or Windows (or OSX, if you have obscene amounts of money to waste) doesn't already, and I'm suspicious of Google's motives, and also I probably should call my grandparents more often.

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 07-10-2009 10:23 AM

At least some folks at PC Magazine are asking questions about Google's Chrome OS and what kind of form it really will take instead of the knee jerk nonsense from more general press circles: "Google is going to kick Microsoft Windows' ass off the planet! Booyah!"

Lance Ulanoff wrote an interesting article, "10 Questions for Google's New Chrome OS." Michael J. Miller posted another story, "Google's Chrome OS: Maybe Not a "PC" OS After All." Both articles put the Google Chrome OS announcement in a more realistic light. Their comments also give me more doubts about whether Google can get anywhere with this effort.

Just look at what's going on with Apple's iPhone. Obviously it's the biggest thing in cellphones right now even though AT&T does a good job ass raping its customers' wallets with the high priced phone plans.

Out of the box the iPhone on its own doesn't really do anything special compared to so many other phones. It's actually quite hilarious AT&T can get away with charging AT&T customers $10 more per month to activate the iPhone's voice dialing functions and $5 more per month to enable its GPS functions when at least a few other phones on AT&T's network provide voice dialing and GPS for free. Call quality on the iPhone isn't exactly great. Despite the speed improvements in the iPhone 3GS, performance is still mediocre. And the iPhone still doesn't support Flash. It's still the phone du jour of cellular phones.

What makes the iPhone special is applications. And those applications get installed on the phone. They're not running off a remote server in the cloud. The iPhone already supports a huge number of applications that is growing everyday. I even saw one that makes the iPhone work as a rifle range finder! I might be tempted to get an iPhone to use any number of its health/fitness related applications, such as ones that map the distance and speed of my mountain bike rides. I'd just have to get rid of my land line phone service to make up for the huge cost spike on my wireless phone plan.

By contrast, Google appears to be centering everything in its Chrome OS around the Chrome web browser. News flash: lots of phones can already surf the web. Most smart phones can already perform lots and lots of tasks. Low priced net books can run WindowsXP and effectively operate as a fully functional office computer. Where is the Google Chrome OS supposed to fit in either of those schemes?

Naturally, Google's Chrome OS won't be ready until the middle of next year. It may take the company that long just to figure out the market segment where its product is supposed to thrive or merely try to survive.

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