There's big news in Google's recent release of Chrome and it's a perspective you might not have considered.
Google may be pitching Chrome as a super-duper browser, but it's really showing off its shiny, new operating system. Remember, each of Chrome's tabs is a separate window--and while you might see each window displaying a Web page, Google's thinking about applications.
This is a direct attack on Microsoft -- and I think Microsoft is worried. That's because a small kernel on your local system could boot you into directly into Chrome, or a server-based operating system, and you could start working sans Windows.
This isn't what happens right now, but I'll bet it's Google's ultimate plan. That's a good thing, because I'm not wild about Chrome as a browser. Read Chrome? I Really Want To Love Ya for my perspective.
Head in the Clouds
The idea is cloud computing, where applications and data reside on servers, and it's taking hold. (See Zoho Adds Google Docs-like File Management and Working with Google Docs, part 1 and part 2.)
I know what you're thinking: Everything online? That's crazy. That's what I used to think, too.
Give Me a Fast Pipe
I remember Microsoft showing off a prerelease version of Windows 95 at a users group I used to manage. The presenter had an intriguing idea: Instead of doing research using Microsoft's CD-based encyclopedia program, Encarta, just reach out to Encarta on the Internet for fresh, dynamic data. Ditto for Word's connection to the Net.
The audience laughed -- so did I -- because few people had broadband; most were still suffering with dialup.
So cloud computing may be pie-in-the-sky right now, but five years down the road, try to visualize everyone having a steady, reliable, and super-fast broadband connection. You might not be laughing.
Worried that you can't work if you're kicked offline? "One important aspect to cloud computing," my buddy Paul Corning, a smart guy, said, "is that Chrome's Gears means you don't have to have continuous broadband access, and you can still work with browser-based applications when the Net's down." That's not new, either. Read Google Gears - Offline Functionality for Web Apps that explains how it works.
Google's OS Announcement
Google all but announced Chrome as an operating system in its recent blog entry, "A fresh take on the browser." In the third paragraph, the writers said:
"We realized that the web had evolved from mainly simple text pages to rich, interactive applications and that we needed to completely rethink the browser. What we really needed was not just a browser, but also a modern platform for web pages and applications, and that's what we set out to build." [Emphasis mine.]
I'm not the only one thinking in this direction. My colleague, Heather Havenstein at Computerworld, has a similar analysis in Google's Chrome aims to kill Windows, make Web the OS of choice. [Hat tip to WinPatrol's Bill.]
I encourage you to read Google's 38-page, Doonesbury-like comic that describes Chrome. Fair warning: I ran out of steam every so often -- some of the ideas forced me to do a little thinking. But stay with it -- the ideas and concepts pick up speed. And if you read between the lines you'll see where Google's going.
Talkback
I also want to hear from you -- here, in Comments, or if you'd prefer, fire an e-mail right into my inbox.
You are absolutely correct about the direction of "cloud computing" and Google. In the mid-1980's I paid a visit to IBM Labs in Yorktown Heights NY and recall their CIO talking about fibre to the desktop as a way to enable unheard of power and applications to user desktops. Not exactly what is happening today but very close, certainly at a strategic level.
I installed Chrome and so far I am delighted. The speed is great and so far the only thing that doesn't work is my Microsoft fingerprint reader. I have had zero stability problems and zero problems displaying web pages.
1st, I love Chrome, it's awesome. It very quickly became my default browser. But you're an idiot. Seriously, how did someone as incompetent as yourself land a gig writing?
Here's why you're an idiot:
http://teddziuba.com/2008/09/a-web-os-are-you-dense.html
You clearly have NO concept of how it all works. Web browsers cannot and will not be operating systems until they start providing BASIC I/O services between the hardware and the user.
In my OPINION, this whole app on a server business (i.e. the poorly named 'cloud computing') will be a fad. And even if it isn't a fad (I admit I could be wrong there), it certainly won't even begin to threaten any operating system.
Will Chrome threaten IE? Quite possibly. Or at least I hope so. Microsoft seems to do good work when they're backed into a corner. Will it destroy Windows? Don't make me laugh. I'd suggest you go find another career and leave the technology to those of us who actually understand it.
Why is this touted as revolutionary? Central computing is anything but new. It is how business computing started out. Just replace "cloud computing" with "time sharing". That's when "dump terminals" were connected to a mainfraim that did all the processing. So in effect consumers are being asked to go backwards and voluntarily turn our rather expensive PC equipment into devices which by rights today we should be able to buy for about $25 if they are made with today's technology. Not to mention putting all of your private data out into the ether with almost zero control over it. Never mind the security issues. No one that is old enough to remember thinks this is progress. The ones that think it is aren't technical enough to care and ignorance in this day and age is very dangerous.
Chrome maybe a good browser but there are concerns:
1.) Privacy. Google makes their money through advertising and their end game will include that... they'll advertise to you and know far more about you than Microsoft ever has... that's scary.
2.) No popup blocker? Tie that into point #1 and it makes you wonder since most popups are... ads.
3.) This browser (and no other browser) is even close to providing what a desktop does. Even when it does provide it, they'll have years of security concerns to work out... you can't even write to disk from a browser now without exploiting security vulnerbilities. :P
4.) Online versions of desktop applications are by and large poor recreations. Online Photoshop for example is a joke compared to the real deal.
5.) Cloud computing will have a place but it will never replace local storage. I for one will never store all of my personal documents on a corporations servers that I have no control over.
I switched to gmail a couple of years ago having tired with not having full access to my mail.calendar function when traveling and not having a corporate server to ease the pain.Desktop Outlook was not meeting my needs. If that is "cloud computing" then I like it. I went for function not fad and I think this is exactly where computing will go over time. It means the OS on the PC will evolve. That evolution will occur in the OS;s, not just MS, and what we call a "browser" today. Exactly why MS has tried to so tightly integrate IE with the OS. I am not sure Google needs to care about expanding Chrome to take care of local PC functions like drivers and becoming a mini-OS. That will be taken care of, at least for the next while, by LInux/Unix,MS and Apple. I expect the success or failure of the move to the "cloud" will depend on having great applications and lots of ubiquitous, reasonably priced bandwidth available.
Post hoc ergo propter hoc. As cloud computing evolves, it could very well be that native operating systems (e.g. Windows, OSX, the multitudes of Linux distros) begin to shrink rather than grow. That's a good thing, and is already evident with Apple's approach to concentrating on stability and efficiency rather than new features in Snow Leopard.
Storing information in a cloud for at-will access is a good thing. Offering software as a service for working with that information is better. Google is simply addressing this paradigm shift head on.
It could be that this is a Windows killer, but it won't be because of malicious intent on the part of Google; it will be because Microsoft once again fails to adapt to the environment or underestimate the technology (e.g. that little annoyance called Mosaic that opened up the internet to the world.)
Now imagine having software as a service for mobile computing needs, and desktop apps for robust editing. That's spells utopia for me.
nulluser123 - a good user name for someone with a attitude like yours. Do us all a favor and crawl back under your TRS-80 until you figure out something useful to do.
Is it broke? Why fix it? Clouds blow away and are not stable. What is all this mess about?
Is it broke? Why fix it? Forget about the silly wheel idea; pulling things on a sledge works just fine!
I am 90% independent of OS's and desktops. Right now. If I didn't do image editing, it would be 100%. Apart from that, everything I do on a computer (and I'm in front of a keyboard, working in Web applications, 6-12 hours a day) is done in the cloud. When I leave home for work, my workspace is waiting for me. If I visit my brother 300 miles away, I crank up Firefox, it and the extensions update from the last time I was there -- and there's my workspace. Crank up the new Eee 1000 -- you got it.
Security: when are you newbies going to get it through your head? If you don't encrypt, there IS no security. It doesn't matter if it's on your machine, on the Web, on Google or Amazon's hyper-redundant servers, or on Homeland Security's website. No encryption = no security. Get it? The only secure data is data that's unreadable.
Cripes, Steve, all those years in IT and writing for PCWorld and you STILL "clearly have NO concept how it works?" (Goes back to what I wrote yesterday, doesn't it, about folks who don't understand the first thing about courtesy on the Web and comment boards?) Oh, yes, you're an idiot, too, I forgot.
Trolls**t.
Chrome...yeah google will have to keep
polishing this one, but with WM Ware and
even, dare i say, (Hyper-V) the OS landscape is
changing rapidly, but i digress. So i'll byte...
Chrome is Windows killer, an OS killer, but wait that
dumb node (my PC? your PC? Never sez Jinx101 ) that
connects to the smart cloud, connects somewhere to
a server, albeit google's, so where did we get
rid of OS? You didn't you just have google on roids:)
kellydp
chrome, what it really is:
http://neoviky.blogspot.com
Vicki