Wednesday, July 8 Google Chrome OS is coming
You could see this one coming a mile off: Google will be launching a new OS based on the Chrome browser.
Whereas Microsoft tried to blend the browser into the OS, Google is going the opposite route and turning the browser into the OS. It was clear from the get-go that the Chrome browser was being designed as almost as a mini OS in itself, able to run applications within (each with their own tabs and threads that could be killed independently if they went off the rails). Now they are just extending that a step further.
Sounds like they are targeting Netbooks as the first foothold - will be interesting to see how that plays out against Android, which would seem to have been their heir to that category, scaled up from its smartphone roots. Google is placing the separation between phones and netbooks, whereas others see phones and netbooks as being part of one category, and laptops/desktops sitting in another category. Jury is still out on that one.
With Apps, Docs, Gears, Chrome Browswer and now OS, and Android, Google is filling in the map of all the chokepoints of the computing experience…
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Reader Comments (2)
Google's move is an interesting one, but it reminds me of another move about a decade ago. Just after the dawn of the Internet everyone wanted to create a dumb network appliance. This device would just connect to the Internet and would forgo the traditional peices of a modern computer.
That movement failed at the time because there wasn't enough "traditional" computer in them. Perhaps with Google's OS, its cloud storage and now no longer "beta" email and docs Google can go beyond the late '90s simple network device and create enough of a computer to statisfy mainstream computer users. I'm still not convinced they can do it.
Android was suppose to set the world on fire and kill the iPhone. Because a device is more then just the OS, poor hardware and some would say half baked software has slowed the release of Android phones to just one in over a year.
The same could be said for the new and not to be shipping for more then a year, Chrome OS. The abilities of the new OS, which haven't been discussed or shown will have to marry with hardware, which Google so far hasn't had a good track record with. They are fighting an uphill battle and having separate development tracks and software for their phone OS and "desktop" OS should only slow Google down.
Uh, in other words, expect to see the trend increase as more Mac and Firefox users get laid off and have to search for *** at home.
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