Google enters OS market

[TheGodBen]

Announcement

It looks like they are mainly targeting the net-book market right now, but no doubt they will be using that as a launchpad to take on Windows across the entire PC market.

Frankly, it doesn't seem like something I would use, but around 75% of computer users probably only use them for internet, emails and office programs so I can see this taking over a significant proportion of the market if it works. Plus, Google is probably the only brand big enough to challenge MS in the public's perception, I've come across plenty of people who refer to their internet browser as "the Google".

Do you think this could be a serious competitor to Windows?

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

It's really Chrome browser + Linux + hyperbole, isn't it?

 

[Luckyflux]

I think it is a great idea. Finally a challenger to MS that is legit. I think they have it right, for alot of people they jsut use their PC to go online, that is it! So why not make it easier for them to do that? Sure they will lose some versatility with their computers, but if they only use it for that one reason, to go online, then that will work.

Almost like a thin client for homes, the box does nothing except run a browser. Sounds good.

 

[msbae]

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aTd2k.YdQZ.Y

Google said it’s working with computer makers to introduce a number of netbooks next year, without identifying any of the companies. The Chrome OS will be open-source, meaning the program code will be open to developers, Google said. The software will work on top of the Linux operating system.

^^^So, they created a Linux shell easy enough for Noobs to use and called that a competitor to Windows? That seems a bit far-fetched. An OS does so much more than web surfing and running the hardware/software interactions.

“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,” Google said. “While there are areas where Google Chrome OS and Android overlap, we believe choice will drive innovation for the benefit of everyone, including Google.”

^^^Does that mean that this OS is just a glorified web browser? Does this mean that the netbooks won't be anything more than just a portable web terminal? I was hoping I might run Office and a few small (in terms of file size) games on one...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8139711.stm

To that end, the search giant said the new OS would go back to basics.

"We are completely redesigning the underlying security architecture of the OS so that users don't have to deal with viruses, malware and security updates.

"It should just work," said Google.

The moment they get significant market share, someone will start writing viruses for Chrome. It's only a matter of time.

Also, I don't want to use the web to write my documents, create spreadsheets or play all of my games. Those things are best left on my desktop or laptop.

 

[Arrqh]

So, they created a Linux shell easy enough for Noobs to use and called that a competitor to Windows? That seems a bit far-fetched. An OS does so much more than web surfing and running the hardware/software interactions.

You seem to, however, be missing the part where this is aimed at netbooks not full laptops or desktops. That really is a different space in terms of OS requirements.

And also... it being a shell on top of a Linux kernel is no reason to denigrate it like that. In basic terms, that's essentially what OSX is... an easy to use shell on top of a FreeBSD derivative. So saying that an OS does "so much more" when, as it's based off of Linux it ALREADY should be capable of everything an OS needs to do doesn't make a lot of sense. The only real difference here is that getting the user into a browser as quickly as possible is their main goal.

The moment they get significant market share, someone will start writing viruses for Chrome. It's only a matter of time.

Not really. Malware, probably. Viruses, no. Those are still very rare in the *nix world. And because it's based around webapps... which do not run locally on the machine... attacking the system is going to be a lot more difficult.

Here's a pretty good article on Ars that talks about some of the potential impacts of this: Google's Chrome OS: what it means, why it matters

From a technological perspective, there appear to be some interesting aspects to rethinking the operating system. For one, by having an extremely narrow focus—bringing up a networking stack and browser as quickly as possible—Chrome OS has the ability to cut down on the hassles related to restarting and hibernating computers. And, aside from the browser, all of the key applications will reside online, security and other software updates won't happen on the computer itself, which should also improve the user experience.

One part of the announcement that may be causing a few grey hairs in Santa Clara: the Chrome OS will run on both x86 and ARM. Many manufacturers have been considering ARM in netbooks due to its exceptional power management capabilities, but the lack of a Windows port has undoubtedly held things back. A netbook-specific Linux with a high-profile corporation like Google backing it may change perceptions and help usher ARM into the space just above handheld hardware, where the architecture already dominates.

All of that would tend to suggest a Chrome OS could wind up occupying a niche. But that may be perfectly fine from Google's perspective. At the moment, Chrome also occupies a relatively small niche, but it has helped change perceptions of what a browser should do in terms of sandboxing processes and isolating plugins. If the Chrome OS can help change consumer perceptions about the utility of online applications and cloud storage, it could be a big success for Google, even without wide adoption.

 

[Marc]

owser? Does this mean that the netbooks won't be anything more than just a portable web terminal? I was hoping I might run Office and a few small (in terms of file size) games on one...

Well many netbooks really get used for nothing more than portable web terminals and although you put office etc on them that's not really what they are aimed at hence being called Netbooks.

And lets face it the cpu in those things isn't blazingly faster (I don't know about the latest Atom but the original model at 1.6GB could be out paced by a Celeron at 900mhz - 1Ghz) so they aren't going to be great at something requires reasonable processing power.

Finally don't forget about Google Apps - all Web Based so you really just do need just a Web terminal or as some-one else mentioned - pretty it's pretty much just goign to do a thin client job.

 

[TheGodBen]

^^^So, they created a Linux shell easy enough for Noobs to use and called that a competitor to Windows? That seems a bit far-fetched. An OS does so much more than web surfing and running the hardware/software interactions.

An OS does more for you and I because we know we know how to use them and want all the various options available to us, but for most people all they really need is an internet browser and a word processor. People like to feel smart, so when most people open the Windows Control Panel and don't know what they are doing it makes them feel small, I imagine they would love to have a simple browser-focused OS that they will have absolutely no problem understanding every aspect of.

I need Windows, there is no way that I could live with an OS which allows just the basics, but if this Chrome OS is simple and stable I could see it breaking out of the net-book market and providing some serious competition to Microsoft. Apple can't take on MS because its computers are priced higher than PCs, Linux can't take them on because nobody knows what it is, but Google is a much-loved brand known for their simplicity. If anyone can make this work it will be Google, for good or bad.

 

[Marc]

^^^So, they created a Linux shell easy enough for Noobs to use and called that a competitor to Windows? That seems a bit far-fetched. An OS does so much more than web surfing and running the hardware/software interactions.

An OS does more for you and I because we know we know how to use them and want all the various options available to us, but for most people all they really need is an internet browser and a word processor. People like to feel smart, so when most people open the Windows Control Panel and don't know what they are doing it makes them feel small, I imagine they would love to have a simple browser-focused OS that they will have absolutely no problem understanding every aspect of.

I need Windows, there is no way that I could live with an OS which allows just the basics, but if this Chrome OS is simple and stable I could see it breaking out of the net-book market and providing some serious competition to Microsoft. Apple can't take on MS because its computers are priced higher than PCs, Linux can't take them on because nobody knows what it is, but Google is a much-loved brand known for their simplicity. If anyone can make this work it will be Google, for good or bad.

I think it will have a great challenge in trying to move beyound the netbook market. Netbooks have pretty standard hardware - there's just the one processor (Intel) atom and two chipsets (the Intel and Nvidia Ion) which means it's going to be pretty straight forward.

move onto the Desktop and it's more complex - you have' got a dozen or more different chipsets, I/O buses, difference processors, different expansion cards.

It's how Apple can really intergrade their hardware and software - it's standardised hardware. Macbooks, the mini, the iMac all standardised hardware with little option for the user to change components.

 

[Danoz]

It will be difficult for them to do anything as cool as the Ubuntu Netbook Remix right off the bat-- but it's not a bad idea, particularly for people who are tapped into the Google mothership for everything (word, excel, email, directions, webstats, rss feeds, etc) and this will essentially be a small "Google Machine."

It will be interesting to see how it does-- but this definitely isn't something Microsoft or Apple should be concerned about right away. If Google announced they were building a massive, innovative, high-end operating system to handle everything under the sun-- maybe-- but this will largely appeal to the burgeoning netbook crowd and not necessarily homes and businesses. If anything, this would be a good supplemental laptop for students and people on the road a lot.

 

[Alpha_Geek]

You seem to, however, be missing the part where this is aimed at netbooks not full laptops or desktops. That really is a different space in terms of OS requirements.

Bzzzt... Try again. This is in the link cited by the OP

"Google Chrome OS is a new project, separate from Android. 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. "

 

[Marc]

It will be difficult for them to do anything as cool as the Ubuntu Netbook Remix right off the bat-- but it's not a bad idea, particularly for people who are tapped into the Google mothership for everything (word, excel, email, directions, webstats, rss feeds, etc) and this will essentially be a small "Google Machine."

It will be interesting to see how it does-- but this definitely isn't something Microsoft or Apple should be concerned about right away. If Google announced they were building a massive, innovative, high-end operating system to handle everything under the sun-- maybe-- but this will largely appeal to the burgeoning netbook crowd and not necessarily homes and businesses. If anything, this would be a good supplemental laptop for students and people on the road a lot.

Hey it's something that might take away from Microsoft, how ever small, and Microsoft doesn't like that.

Remember the joke that Windows was a 16bit extension to an 8bit operating system by a 2bit company that can't stand 1 bit of competition.

 

[DiSiLLUSiON]

The most important thing is not the idea about applications in a browser, or that it's built on linux, but it's interface; how innovative and intuitively & easy to use it is will make it or break it. Google has a few good interface specialists in house; it shouldn't be a total bust, at the very least. I have high hopes.

 

[TheGodBen]

move onto the Desktop and it's more complex - you have' got a dozen or more different chipsets, I/O buses, difference processors, different expansion cards.

But that's the dilemma for Microsoft, having dominance of the desktop market right now is like is like a company that had dominance over the horse-drawn carriage industry in the 1910s. Microsoft themselves admit that the desktop PC market is on the way out and the future lies with net-book type computers running applications from a centralised source over a network, and that's exactly what Google appears to be doing with this OS.

Google don't need to make a major push for the desktop PC market because that's not where the money is going to be ten years from now.

 

[Marc]

move onto the Desktop and it's more complex - you have' got a dozen or more different chipsets, I/O buses, difference processors, different expansion cards.

But that's the dilemma for Microsoft, having dominance of the desktop market right now is like is like a company that had dominance over the horse-drawn carriage industry in the 1910s. Microsoft themselves admit that the desktop PC market is on the way out and the future lies with net-book type computers running applications from a centralised source over a network, and that's exactly what Google appears to be doing with this OS.

Google don't need to make a major push for the desktop PC market because that's not where the money is going to be ten years from now.

I've read a couple of articles from TechRepublic arguing that the notion of Software as a Service won't be all it's cracked up to be and for large scale businesses though I've heard of people using it on small scale successfully.

An frankly I wouldn't be too keen on the idea of being dependant on an internet connection and some-one else's systems for the operation of my business (though i will admit to a bias here - I've made my living out IT support so having people running servers in their offices put money in my pocket). But if Google was to licence their software so that Businesses could deploy Google Apps to example from their own servers.

If the SaaS/thin client model takes off it really will be second time lucky. Thin computing was touted as the way of the future about 10 years ago (Sun has the SunRay clients, Citrix software started to come out, Microsoft developed Terminal Server with complenents licenced from Citrix).

SunRay suffered from Java and the need for a great big Sun Server behind it but Microsoft TS and Citrix are still around and going strong (never done Citrix but have done a TS install and think TS under server 2008 is damn good).

 

[Arrqh]

You seem to, however, be missing the part where this is aimed at netbooks not full laptops or desktops. That really is a different space in terms of OS requirements.

Bzzzt... Try again. This is in the link cited by the OP

"Google Chrome OS is a new project, separate from Android. 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. "

No, you are incorrect. The primary platform Chrome OS is being developed for at this time is netbooks. At the very least, that's where it is most likely to get any sort of consumer penetration. Check out the link I posted as well as Google's official blog post and try to be a little less flippant before saying something wrong next time

It's certainly a given that the OS will run on full laptops and desktops but that is not where it is being targeted at.

 

[darkshadow0001]

Announcement

It looks like they are mainly targeting the net-book market right now, but no doubt they will be using that as a launchpad to take on Windows across the entire PC market.

Frankly, it doesn't seem like something I would use, but around 75% of computer users probably only use them for internet, emails and office programs so I can see this taking over a significant proportion of the market if it works. Plus, Google is probably the only brand big enough to challenge MS in the public's perception, I've come across plenty of people who refer to their internet browser as "the Google".

Do you think this could be a serious competitor to Windows?

I dunno, I saw it on the news earlier and I don't seem to care for it. While Google has an awesome search engine & toolbar, they lack everywhere else.

 

[Australis]

An frankly I wouldn't be too keen on the idea of being dependant on an internet connection and someone else's systems for the operation of my business

That's why I'm not interested. The idea of the apps I use being on a server doesn't thrill me. Maybe I'm old-school, but I just don't think teh interwebz are that stable, you're at the whim of some big company trying to squeeze as much data as possible through tiny wires. If the net does go down, at least I can work on stuff on my PC locally.

 

[Alpha_Geek]

No, you are incorrect. The primary platform Chrome OS is being developed for at this time is netbooks. At the very least, that's where it is most likely to get any sort of consumer penetration. Check out the link I posted as well as Google's official blog post and try to be a little less flippant before saying something wrong next time

It's certainly a given that the OS will run on full laptops and desktops but that is not where it is being targeted at.

Ummm...
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/introducing-google-chrome-os.html
Look closely at Paragraph 5. That was a direct quote I posted earlier.

 

[Arrqh]

No, you are incorrect. The primary platform Chrome OS is being developed for at this time is netbooks. At the very least, that's where it is most likely to get any sort of consumer penetration. Check out the link I posted as well as Google's official blog post and try to be a little less flippant before saying something wrong next time

It's certainly a given that the OS will run on full laptops and desktops but that is not where it is being targeted at.

Ummm...
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/introducing-google-chrome-os.html
Look closely at Paragraph 5. That was a direct quote I posted earlier.

Ummm look closely at the entire rest of the article. Google has said that the primary target of this OS is netbooks. Every single article analyzing the impact the OS will have is focused around netbooks. Why are you so insistent that this is not the case? Seriously, look at where they say when the release date is... they specifically are talking about the date it will be appearing on netbooks.

Again, and I really think this is very clear and I don't see why it needs repeating, while Chrome OS will run on full desktops and laptops the main target is netbooks. The one sentence in the blog post that you seem unable to read past doesn't even dispute that.

 

[Alpha_Geek]

It says "initial".