Just another weekend musing…

My knee-jerk reaction to Chrome was to scratch my head and wonder why Google wanted to be such a late entrant into a highly populated field of browser applications, all of which are free.

So then I got to thinking. I don’t think this is about what it seems on the surface, the desire to build a better mousetrap. I think it is about killing the mouse altogether.

It seems to me that Chrome is another component, yet the keystone, of a new OS. Seemingly unthinkable in its arrival 25 years after the fact, the new Google OS would be surprisingly simple and thus easy to grab market share from the faltering Microsoft. I’m a complete computing layman, but it would presumably be quite easy (and I’m sure financially attractive) for manufacturers such as Dell and HP to make computers that will essentially just boot into Chrome. Google has, piecemeal over time, assembled all the apps that the majority of users would need, and everything can be done on-line. The computer itself would merely be a portal to “the cloud” as it were, with files being saved locally as well of course.

Chrome allows all its tabs to run separately from one another, so that if the application running in one tab crashes it would not crash all the other applications, much like every other OS out there. If Chrome is the OS, it seems to me at least that it will enable the manufacturers to end their reliance on Microsoft, which they, and now it even seems most consumers, have come to loathe.

The unfortunate side of this scenario is that it will also make Google a formidable competitor to Apple.

I look forward to being told how crazy an idea this is. 

MacGuffin

Re: Chrome: A Trojan Horse?

[quote author=“MacGuffin”]Just another weekend musing…

My knee-jerk reaction to Chrome was to scratch my head and wonder why Google wanted to be such a late entrant into a highly populated field of browser applications, all of which are free.

So then I got to thinking. I don’t think this is about what it seems on the surface, the desire to build a better mousetrap. I think it is about killing the mouse altogether.

It seems to me that Chrome is another component, yet the keystone, of a new OS. Seemingly unthinkable in its arrival 25 years after the fact, the new Google OS would be surprisingly simple and thus easy to grab market share from the faltering Microsoft. I’m a complete computing layman, but it would presumably be quite easy (and I’m sure financially attractive) for manufacturers such as Dell and HP to make computers that will essentially just boot into Chrome. Google has, piecemeal over time, assembled all the apps that the majority of users would need, and everything can be done on-line. The computer itself would merely be a portal to “the cloud” as it were, with files being saved locally as well of course.

Chrome allows all its tabs to run separately from one another, so that if the application running in one tab crashes it would not crash all the other applications, much like every other OS out there. If Chrome is the OS, it seems to me at least that it will enable the manufacturers to end their reliance on Microsoft, which they, and now it even seems most consumers, have come to loathe.

The unfortunate side of this scenario is that it will also make Google a formidable competitor to Apple.

I look forward to being told how crazy an idea this is. 

MacGuffin

It’s not crazy at all but very astute.  We all know cloud computing and the like will become more important in the future.  The internet itself will probably be much more interesting and complicated before long.  Think 3d web pages with interactive motion and the like.  A typical OS does so little in the grand scheme of things and when apps are running online, there are fewer resources need on the home computer.  I think you’re spot-on.

There will still need to be an OS of sorts at home for a very long time to come and Apple is going through a phase of hardware transition that should protect it for a long time to come (touchscreen technology).  Microsoft, unfortunately, is becoming more and more irrelevant with each passing day.  Its main hope for survival would be to follow Apple down the hardware path but Microsoft has not demonstrated the ability to successfully produce great hardware.  They are a software company that got too fat on Windows and was never able to innovate like Google on the browser front.

Windows has become essentially irrelevant. Apple succeed where AOL failed - building a monetization vehicle that runs on top of Windows (iTunes).

GOOG is taking the next step - delivering a suite of solutions that also monetizes the Web and runs either through cloud computing or a Web interface. Again, Windows is irrelevant.

Rather than evangelizing Vista, MSFT might be best advised to focus on specific solutions that extend the usefulness of Windows rather than a push to change public perception of the underlying OS.

The MSFT model will only continue to diminish in importance and significance as the vehicles for monetization move away from the company.

With Chrome technologies being released as open-source, it may be only a matter of time before they’re incorporated into Safari. Apple is monetizing their future online applications through MobileMe. Meaning, you can either cobble together the functionality you want with Google-branded services (free), or you can have a tightly integrated suite of web apps and loads of other functionality with Apple (less than $10/month). Or perhaps Apple’s connections with Google mean that Chrome will be bundled as the main browser with new macs, intended for use with MobileMe. Either way, Apple’s first Web 2.0 monetization engine (iTunes) was just the first step towards the next engine (MobileMe). Spectacular.

The Chrome technologies are using WebKit as the basis for the browser which is also the basis of Safari and as an open source project, Google should provide back to the community.  I would expect the next release of Apple’s IWork bundle software to move to the cloud and then followed by ILife. 
As the network pipe increases bandwidth, we move from the fat client back to the thin client model.  The interesting part in my mind is the fact that a pocket computer (iphone, itouch) becomes the thin client for all the server apps.  No longer does corporate or consumer need to drag a laptop along, the server connected palmtop provides all the vital resources.