Comments on: Google Chrome OS: More and Better Web Apps on The Way?

By: Simon Mackie

Simon Mackie — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 00:07:45 +0000

That’s a great point, James. A non-tech savvy punter might struggle with the idea of buying a Linux netbook — but a Google netbook sounds much more familiar. Even my mother would be happy with one!
For Google, the more mainstream users they can get using Chrome OS and using Google Apps, the more people they have viewing their ads.

By: Simon Mackie

Simon Mackie — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 00:00:31 +0000

Yes, I agree – I was surprised, particularly as Android should work pretty well as an OS for netbooks, I would have thought. There was also the suspicious timing of the announcement to consider (but I am getting off-topic).

By: Simon Mackie

Simon Mackie — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 23:58:28 +0000

Yes, I agree – calling it a Chrome operating system might be a stretch.

By: Simon Mackie

Simon Mackie — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 23:54:56 +0000

Gears is a super-important part of Google’s attempt to get everyone comfortable using web apps. I’m not sure we’ve seen it used to its fullest yet, either — Offline Gmail is cool, but (for example) Wordpress see to only use Gears to improve performance, rather than provide true offline support. Presumably Gears will be baked into Chrome OS.

Personally, I don’t really like AIR – it’s a memory hog and I quite like my web apps to sit in my browser, but it is another option for ensuring web aps don’t fall over when connectivity is unavailable.

By: Michael Wolf

Michael Wolf — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 22:15:07 +0000

Its an interesting proposal, Kiran – the idea of Google taking ownership of the entire product. I think that they’ll like stay away from becoming a true hardware manufacturer since they’re more interested in being omnipresent on devices in mobile, so being a platform for software and services seems the more likely long-term solution, as getting into hardware would likely alienate its partners in the handset market.

By: James Kendrick

James Kendrick — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 14:46:54 +0000

I think it’s a branding thing. Google is known to everyone and a laptop “by Google” is a much easier sell than a Linux version. This is not aimed at geeks who know about these things, this is all about reaching the mainstream market where the numbers are huge.

By: raj2

raj2 — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 12:50:21 +0000

IMHO Chrome OS is a misnomer. Chrome is not the OS. OS is not inside Chrome. It is at best a tight bundle of LAMP+Chrome. This is already possible today. Just install any flavor of Linux without the graphical interface and run any of the available standards based browsers to get your own “OS”. But, this is certainly a clever strategy to make MS and others go helter skelter trying to figure out how to counter this phenomenon.

raj

By: Kiran Nataraj

Kiran Nataraj — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 09:14:33 +0000

I think Netbooks is a segment, not unlike the smartphone segment, that could do with the iPhone effect. While Chrome (like Android) would do reasonably well – would be great if Google does focus on the hardware as well – to get a more complete product out.
Netbooks also fit in nicely with the resurgence of the thin client computing arch (aka Cloud) and SaaS models; so if positioned correctly, Chrome can help be at the forefront of some of the sales force web apps that would help netbooks take off…

By: Michael Wolf

Michael Wolf — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 23:55:45 +0000

I am a bit skeptical of Chrome OS’s necessity, to be honest, and have to wonder why they just didn’t port Android. If we are talking about moving more compute to the cloud and the browser becoming the front-end for so much of the applications we are talking about, I have to wonder why Google wouldn’t just standardize on one OS like Apple has done with OS X for all its client efforts. I think Android for one device type and Chrome OS for another just creates confusion, quite honestly, especially since they’re both on top of a Linux kernel.

By: Stacey Higginbotham

Stacey Higginbotham — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 19:34:07 +0000

Simon, where do programs like Google Gears or Adobe’s Air fit into all of this? Presumably they become more improtant for offline access to web apps when the user is not connected, but even by 2010 when Chrome OS should be released, we’re still going to have patchy broadband coverage.