I remain skeptical about this sort of “OS”. First, you are going to be largely dependent on connectivity to the web to enable a lot of the functionality you normally get from a normal OS. Second, although internet speeds are improving thats still a pretty significant bottleneck.
But wait, you say, this is going to be for lightweight computing. Ok, so e-mail, internet and document editing don’t need a huge amount of speed (it would be nice for the internet part though). These certainly aren’t going to be systems designed for video editing, 3-d gaming, etc. Trouble is, there have been efforts to develop these thin-clients in the past that haven’t gone well. People LIKE being able to do more than just internet, e-mail, and word on their computers, even if they dont’ do much of it. Maybe the time is right for those thin clients to work, maybe Google can get it done, but that relies on the idea that netbooks are going to be a succesful market too, and early indications are that its a struggling market. Margins are razor thin and many people are returning their netbooks because they are, well, slow and underperformant.
What Google will need to do is deliver on speed and set peoples expectations for these devices to match what they can deliver. Its a tall tall order, and well, i’ll believe it when I see it.
The biggest hurdle that I think Google faces however, is not speed or marketing though. The biggest hurdle it faces is the iPod. People’s music/video libraries are a huge part of what computers are used for these days. Without the ability to manage your music and sync it with your media player, which for a vast majority of the people out there means the iPod, its going to be a tough sell for a great many people. Unless Apple decides to release iTunes for ChromeOS and well, they don’t have to if they don’t want to at this point, its going to be difficult for Google to win over the consumer computer market.
Geeks and nerds (especially those of the Free Software loving spectrum) will eat it up. Will it be enough to keep the OS alive? Time will tell.
Brendan Loy
Fascinating analysis, David. You should expand it into a Guest Room post! I might even promote it 🙂
Brendan Loy
(I wonder if any other guestbloggers disagree, and would like to do a “counterpoint” Guest Room post to your “point”? Hmm…)
David K.
Sure thing, i’ll try and throw it together when I get home tonight. In the meantime, this comment from Gizmodo is amusing:
“Everybody is so happy of all the attacks to microsoft that they have not stop for a minute to think about whats happening, Google is not trying to destroy the “evil empire”, google is trying to become it.”
I don’t know that there’s enough counterpoint to acutally warrant an article, but here’s a few things I’d like to throw out there:
– Early indications are not that netbooks are a struggling market. Quite the contrary, they’ve seen explosive growth.
– I think you are missing the point of a netbook David, they aren’t meant to be a primary machine. They are meant to be what you take with you to class, work, or the coffee shop to do a little surfing and get some work done. So any attempt to imply that this is meant to be someone’s mainstream machine, or that this is something they are trying to sell to everyone, would be misleading.
– Netbooks != thin clients. Not the same thing, at all. Neither in intended function or how they are set up.
The only thing you touched on that I agree with is internet connectivity, but that has less to do with chrome os than with the google app’s model in general. Degrading gracefully when internet connectivity is lost is going to be the key.
Incidentally, I recently bought a MacBook Air. I’m really pleased because it’s a step above a netbook, but much lighter than my MacBook Pro was (which was already light compared to its competitors). For me it hits a specific niche that I like. But that’s because it’s my *only* machine. For people who have a desktop at home, a netbook can be a perfect compliment.
Oh, and don’t even get me started on the many differences between the way google does thing and the way Microsoft does things. Google is a participant in the free software eco-system, taking and giving. As a result companies everywhere benefit.
Microsoft is the opposite, with a track history of trying to suppress free software, to the detriment of everyone.
I’m very skeptical of netbooks, but not because I think people don’t want a smaller, thinner client. They do. But in the long run, as they are able to do more and more, people are going to go to smart phones.
Take the iPhone as an example. Look at what it can do already. Before long, it is going to do what the laptop used to do – be the smaller, portable computer you use on the road, checking email and so forth. Netbooks are going to be left out because they will be more expensive than smart phones, but limited as laptops (most people will just want to spend a few hundred more for the real thing).
I remain skeptical about this sort of “OS”. First, you are going to be largely dependent on connectivity to the web to enable a lot of the functionality you normally get from a normal OS. Second, although internet speeds are improving thats still a pretty significant bottleneck.
But wait, you say, this is going to be for lightweight computing. Ok, so e-mail, internet and document editing don’t need a huge amount of speed (it would be nice for the internet part though). These certainly aren’t going to be systems designed for video editing, 3-d gaming, etc. Trouble is, there have been efforts to develop these thin-clients in the past that haven’t gone well. People LIKE being able to do more than just internet, e-mail, and word on their computers, even if they dont’ do much of it. Maybe the time is right for those thin clients to work, maybe Google can get it done, but that relies on the idea that netbooks are going to be a succesful market too, and early indications are that its a struggling market. Margins are razor thin and many people are returning their netbooks because they are, well, slow and underperformant.
What Google will need to do is deliver on speed and set peoples expectations for these devices to match what they can deliver. Its a tall tall order, and well, i’ll believe it when I see it.
The biggest hurdle that I think Google faces however, is not speed or marketing though. The biggest hurdle it faces is the iPod. People’s music/video libraries are a huge part of what computers are used for these days. Without the ability to manage your music and sync it with your media player, which for a vast majority of the people out there means the iPod, its going to be a tough sell for a great many people. Unless Apple decides to release iTunes for ChromeOS and well, they don’t have to if they don’t want to at this point, its going to be difficult for Google to win over the consumer computer market.
Geeks and nerds (especially those of the Free Software loving spectrum) will eat it up. Will it be enough to keep the OS alive? Time will tell.
Fascinating analysis, David. You should expand it into a Guest Room post! I might even promote it 🙂
(I wonder if any other guestbloggers disagree, and would like to do a “counterpoint” Guest Room post to your “point”? Hmm…)
Sure thing, i’ll try and throw it together when I get home tonight. In the meantime, this comment from Gizmodo is amusing:
“Everybody is so happy of all the attacks to microsoft that they have not stop for a minute to think about whats happening, Google is not trying to destroy the “evil empire”, google is trying to become it.”
I don’t know that there’s enough counterpoint to acutally warrant an article, but here’s a few things I’d like to throw out there:
– Early indications are not that netbooks are a struggling market. Quite the contrary, they’ve seen explosive growth.
– I think you are missing the point of a netbook David, they aren’t meant to be a primary machine. They are meant to be what you take with you to class, work, or the coffee shop to do a little surfing and get some work done. So any attempt to imply that this is meant to be someone’s mainstream machine, or that this is something they are trying to sell to everyone, would be misleading.
– Netbooks != thin clients. Not the same thing, at all. Neither in intended function or how they are set up.
The only thing you touched on that I agree with is internet connectivity, but that has less to do with chrome os than with the google app’s model in general. Degrading gracefully when internet connectivity is lost is going to be the key.
Incidentally, I recently bought a MacBook Air. I’m really pleased because it’s a step above a netbook, but much lighter than my MacBook Pro was (which was already light compared to its competitors). For me it hits a specific niche that I like. But that’s because it’s my *only* machine. For people who have a desktop at home, a netbook can be a perfect compliment.
Oh, and don’t even get me started on the many differences between the way google does thing and the way Microsoft does things. Google is a participant in the free software eco-system, taking and giving. As a result companies everywhere benefit.
Microsoft is the opposite, with a track history of trying to suppress free software, to the detriment of everyone.
I’m very skeptical of netbooks, but not because I think people don’t want a smaller, thinner client. They do. But in the long run, as they are able to do more and more, people are going to go to smart phones.
Take the iPhone as an example. Look at what it can do already. Before long, it is going to do what the laptop used to do – be the smaller, portable computer you use on the road, checking email and so forth. Netbooks are going to be left out because they will be more expensive than smart phones, but limited as laptops (most people will just want to spend a few hundred more for the real thing).