Google announces OS! (Cloud computing gains an extra foothold)
After hearing murmurs in the rumor mill for quite a while, Google has finally confirmed the speculations…. they are releasing an operating system. The Google Chrome OS, which is centered around the Chrome web browser, is initially targeted at netbooks. Given the fact that netbooks are primarily companion devices and their primary usage pattern is web-surfing, the move to target netbooks to begin with and make the OS revolve around Chrome is smart. It’ll allow Google to beta test their OS on a relatively limited number of non-critical PCs and gather feedback from the userbase to tweak the OS in preparation for a larger assault on the computing world.
While details are relatively sparse, the following statement from the announcement hints at a full-on foray into the cloud computing space
“They want their data to be accessible to them wherever they are and not have to worry about losing their computer or forgetting to back up files. Even more importantly, they don’t want to spend hours configuring their computers to work with every new piece of hardware, or have to worry about constant software updates.”
Personally, I think that the announcement of the Google Chrome OS is a welcome bit of news. The operating systems that are currently preloaded on netbooks are either dated or unintuitive and this highly legitimate competitor to the incumbents will help to force improvements, making customers the winners. In a previous article on Roaring Mouse, I argued that cloud computing and a move to an all-Internet based software environment for most business software is imminent. I believe that this announcement is a major step toward making that claim a reality. What do you think of it all?
July 9th, 2009 at 11:13 am
The future of cloud computing will depend on one important factors, which is the download and upload internet traffic limit in that country.
In China for example, there is no internet download and upload limits, in addition there is a fast internet traffic speed (which is going to get faster once the internet infrastructure is completed in two years time in most major cities).
In Australia, the ADSL 2+ have been rolled out in most part of major cities, there are however crippled by the download/upload limit set by most ISP (i.e. 25 gig per month). While, the Australian federal government have setup plan to increase the internet download speed to 100 mbits/sec, it will however be crippled by the stingy download limit set by the ISP.
Further more unless the various wireless ISP (i.e. Wimax, HSDPA, etc) can provide a generous download cap (currently most are limited to 6 gigs per months, with every additional megabyte incurring around $0.15 AUD), then the cloud computing would be severely limited in its customer base.
July 11th, 2009 at 5:29 pm
“What do you think of it all?”
It looks to me as though google wants to gather more information about computer users. Don’t they get enough through their site and toolbars? An OS would really help them with their information gathering, it’s frightening !!
September 2nd, 2009 at 3:30 am
Some time back there were rumors making the round that the android OS will also be available for the netbook market,now google has kept too many eggs in a single bowl,its more confusing then ever will it be android or Chrorium? remains to be seen.
In the end though i think linux is the clear winner here,since both chromium and android are based on it.