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New York, 2:21 PM
Thu Nov 12
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07/09/09
Back in 1995, Netscape and Sun were going to create a new browser-based "OS" that was going to render Windows and MacOS obsolete, but it simply didn't work. Now web application programmers are using hideous kludges like AJAX and writing glacially slow Javascript. Everyone's trying to make Javascript run faster and inventing things like HTML 5 to make up for all the shortcomings of the ill-defined, incompatibility-plagued browser platform. What a mess.
07/09/09
07/09/09
IMO releasing this Chrome+Linux-kernel thing would definitelly cement google's position as the next MSFT (and be a big "F U" to all those linux nerds out there).
Expect nothing but a netbook/x86 version of WebOS: it's going to be Chrome runing on top of linux, BUT the big difference is that you never click on the colored sphere, you just click on google apps, and those open a custom window with a nice smooth effect, just like in the Pre.
Problem? well, if you are out of signal, you're SOL, just like the other day when one of my coworkers was out in the field and got lost when his phone couldn't download the google maps he needed.
Anyway, the fact is that even with the retard-proof chrome, mozilla, the "pro's choice" is still eating MSFT crappy browser's market share.
The catch is that GOOG may find the way to convince OEMs to put the gOS for free on their machines, making them cheaper than Win ones.
Obviously you need people realise they can continue with their timewasting activities effortlessly in the gOS, or else everybody is going to keep paying for their crappy windows copy.
07/11/09
Why wouldn't it be much of a leap for them to do the same with GOOG? In fact, if GOOG does their driver testing it's almost a shoe in.
07/08/09
Since when? There's no Linux version available on Google's site.
Or is he saying something completely different that only happens to sound like something else that is false?
07/08/09
People who aren't geeks--which I arbitrarily say is 98% of the public--could give a monkey's nut. The target audience is not business and geeks who feel they can "improve" everything. The target is the stereo-typical "American family" who want to watch porn, check email, and post pictures to their geneology page.
Google is a brand name they recognize. Simple, brilliant.
(And FWIW, HTML5 is expected to be adopted around summer 2010. The same time the Google netbook will retail. One will encourage the use of the other, something I'm sure hasn't been lost on Google.)
07/09/09
07/08/09
1/ The Google name. Every Facebooker and MySpacer out in the real 'userland'.. not that fantasyland Winer thinks is, but the real one, think 'American heartland' where they could give a shit less about drivers and kernels, they just want to put photos on and break up via Facebook... EVERYONE knows Google. Google Maps, GEarth, oh, and GMail.
When the market flattens and there's no more growth, it's time to pick a fight and take some territory. Apple did it with the iPhone, and this lesson is NOT lost on Google.
2/ Google has the $$$. They're serious, as they've not only hired from MSFT but Adobe and even Apple as well. Adobe *had* PDF and Flash. If GOOG eats into MSFT's market share then they flush all the vendors that rely on MSFT to live. Like... who? What has ADBE done lately? Adobe stuff is absolute shit on any other platform other than Windows. Apple has a model that works, that's for sure.
If Google can get all the drivers right and sandbox or even BLOCK the crap that makes netbooks crash, they will really have something. You guys can quibble about schematics when the big deal is, that done right, it will mean the end of botnets and spam -- IF the Google OS is adopted as much as Windows has been.
What are the two diseases of the 'net? Windows and Flash.
So think of it: Google has front to back control of the user experience, a license-free OS[es] that hook[s] in with netbooks, handhelds, smartphones... Google has the moxy to execute on an Apple type model [Desktop, MobileMe, iPhone] and succeed. Mostly because of the stupid amount of working capital that they have......
07/08/09
Really? Which website promotes flash than all other websites combined? YouTube. So, don't think it is going to go away any time soon. As per gOS competing with MSFT; it is BS. They might as well buy Canonical and rename it to 'google OS'. It would be much cleaner than all BS about chrome os.
07/08/09
MIDI & Animated gif had their heydays too. So will go Flash, but for a different reason.
What's happening right now is that Apple has set an example by doing an end run around MSFT with the ipods & iphone. Adobe got arrogant and Apple spanked them.. You can read some here:
[blogs.adobe.com]
Right about where the AAPL guy says:
# # [08:10] othermaciej: it makes Adobe look sad and desparate to try to fight against HTML having more features..
..ad nauseum. It's pretty much a no-brainer that Apple leads and then someone else picks up the gauntlet and really runs with their idea.
Last time it was MSFT.
This time it MAY be GOOG.
Anyone on the MSFT side of the line is probably either going to jump ship to GOOG or be handed a feeding tube.
Adobe just can't get their act together on Linux or for that matter ANY *nix, so they are buzzkill. They also can't get their act together on PPC or for that matter the ARM processors that succeeded them. For a current example I give you the iPhone. They. aren't. there.
And never will be. And none of the iPhone owners, even the new new new GS owners even care a whit. Else they'd be getting N95s or some other phone for 'Flash'.
Heck, look at all the Americans who bought the new 3GS IN SPITE of ATT. Do they gets their Youtube? Hells yeah. Do they care about Flash? Flash what?
But this is just icing on the cake to GOOG, because as riggsm says below the average yob on the street, the real target for this is the 'American Family'.
They want it to work. They don't want any of the stuff that 'slows down their PC'.. and if GOOG delivers, then MSFT will go the way of old AAPL. Remember when AAPL was the only game in town and PCs were a joke?
GOOG is going to do what AAPL did. Sandbox the hell out of anything that detracts from the GOOG experience. It works. Just look at all those iPhone 3GS numbers.
I hate to say it, the future of computing for the masses is a very high, well unscalable walled garden. It obviously works, just not for everyone.
Developers may be gnashing their teeth, but it'll be sweet for the mostly computer illiterate end user.
07/08/09
We'll understand the details of the new Google OS better as time passes but from their first blog post about it is sounds as if the new system will be incompatible with most GNU/Linux programs. For example, a "new window system" suggests that you won't be able to run Open Office on it, or the Gimp, or a Gnome or KDE desktop.
A pragmatic definition of an OS is "a platform to which applications must be non-trivially ported, if they are to run there". You might need to make trivial changes in configuration or such to move a typical app from Red Hat Enterprise YaddaYadda to Ubuntu Monstrous Mutt but it is likely but a few hours work, at most. In contrast, while Google say they are using the Linux kernel, it sounds like a very much more substantial port. "New OS," in that case, is not a bad description.
But you want some dirt. Some inside, wild speculation type stuff. Well... I can't help but notice that one of the big influencers in Google's R&D is Rob Pike, one of the early makers of unix and later a maker of other operating systems such as Plan 9. Oh, yeah, he's also a harsh critic of the X11 window system and designer and implementor of some alternatives. Thinking like he might think:
The linux *kernel* gives you free device drivers, a network stack, a VM stack and process management. These are boring, tedious, labor-intensive *parts* of an OS. Meanwhile, the traditional unix "user space" and the popular window system are for shit. Historical accident monstrosities.
The ambitious middle aged OS designer, these days, would do just what Google says they've done: take the linux kernel but make everything else anew.
I'm no Google fanboy, by far, but I think they've probably got a live one here.
-t
07/08/09
07/08/09
After all, other small device *nixes have descendents of RPM. The AppStore, and uh, unofficially, Cydia for the iHardware.
I think it's more a question of will Google keep ChromeOS 'jailed' to protect the users, or will the 'open it up' so that everyone can play / dev / contribute.
I'm thinking the latter based on their actions.
07/09/09
07/08/09
Google OS has a chance at success if they a) can hide the user-hostile parts of Linux, e.g. configuration b) provide a trusted corporate point of contact and a polished, ready-to-deploy product for hardware manufacturers c) have sufficiently compelling apps on the device and in the cloud that people don't care that it can't run Windows software. The Google brand may help, and so will the licensing cost: $0.
With all that, you're correct that this isn't really an announcement of a Google OS. Rather, it's the most compelling articulation to date of Google's longstanding claim that you don't really need an OS, just a browser and a filesystem. Though arguably that makes it even more unnerving for Microsoft.
07/09/09
So we'll see how this shakes out. I personally think version 1, at least, won't be much different than Ubuntu Linux running Chrome, but who knows. And no doubt it'll evolve.
At the very least, (desktop) Linux now has a very big booster to go up against MS.
07/11/09
07/08/09
"Massive invasion of privacy!" (From and open source OS? Really?)
"Google drops atom bomb!" (Oh, yeah, just like Netscape did).
And can you really count something as a surprise that has been rumored for years?
Must be a slow news day.
07/08/09
Ever wonder why every other word uttered by Ballmer or Gates is "Innovation"? Or why Repugnants are so insistent on "Family Values"? It's because they are very insecure in those fields.
07/08/09
Also, "because the new Google interface is not Totally Native, they are somehow cheating?" that's called making a strawman argument. [en.wikipedia.org]
The point being made is is that Chrome OS isn't really the PC operating system, a Windows rival, that the press is making it to be. Instead, it's a software that runs on a web appliance.
So it's about PC vs Web appliance, not Windows vs Chrome OS on the PC.
07/08/09
Microsoft is often accused of stealing their concepts. I challenge the accusers to do something like code a GUI operating system using mid-1980's hardware. Yeah, Windows looked like Macintosh. So did OS/2. All word processors basically look and function the same. Web browsers for god's sake have to be pretty similar to conform to things like HTML standards.
07/13/09
07/13/09
It is 1987, when I brought home my first IBM clone. The IBM-PC is taking off, with DOS aboard. You have to type your commands, or create batch files, to run it. MS looks around and notes an interface on two fronts made up out of pictures. Hey, good thinking! So they copied it over DOS and made Windows.
I'm missing both the "innovation" and the "invention" part of this equation.
03/31/09
Meanwhile, Google wants to take over the world. NARF!
03/31/09
Google wants to be in charge and will do what it needs to do to make its products the most used and most profitable.
03/31/09
Which brings up another sore spot with me- reading about the perquisites of the High Technocracy. Seems a well-known computer game design House has a break room with gratis commissary, classic pinball machines, and Dabo girl-quality fluffers wandering around making themselves useful.
On the Finance side, we're reduced to gloating like spoiled children when management shows up to the morning meeting with complimentary Panera bagels and coffee. And there's talk of putting treadles under our desks to help our cardio and to offset the office energy bill.
03/31/09
03/31/09
03/31/09
Mozilla (Firefox) was doing OK before Google started providing so much money to it. They could probably readjust to getting funding from a multiplicity of sources.
03/31/09