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Google and Their Server Farm
JR writes "CNet has a very interesting story about Google, operating systems, and where Google may be going. The upshot is that they may make OS issues totally irrelevant by supplying everything anyone needs over the web from their mega-server-farm."
Seriously if I had a dime for everytime someone predicted the demise
of the desktop, I'd have a couple of bucks.
Here is the problem I have with her theory. Her points were all
logical and well laid out, essentially that most people aren't system
administrators and that they don't back their data up, don't secure it
etc. While that is true, it doesn't necessarily lead to people giving
up the desktop in favor of a thin client. Giving up your desktop is
an emotional decision, and there are a lot of factors that weigh
against that.
In the long run, maybe ten, fifteen or even twenty years in the
future, this type of service may be much more prevalent. But I don't
think something like this will change over night. Think about how
much computer systems have really changed in the last ten years. Not
that much if you really stop to think about it. What she is
predicting is a *massive* paradigm shift to say the least. Microsoft
didn't have the clout to pull it off, probably because no one trusts
them enough. Do you trust Google enough to give them *all* of your
data? I'm not sure I trust *anyone* that much.
Doug Tolton
"The destruction of a value which is, will not bring value to that which isn't." -John Galt
In the future, the network will be just as dependable as any other public utility. When "the network is down", people will treat it just like when the power's out today.
Now, worst than that. Imagine what will happen if for some, any reason your data is lost in their servers.
Of course, as the EULA will state, the service goes with no warrantay and AS IS. So after that you will just be screwed.
And there you have another point, I sincerely preffer to buy a house than to rent it, if I rent software, they will have me grabbed-by-the-b4115 until I die, and surely DRMd in some way. It is similar to iTunes, once they grab you, you pay, or scream...
Sincerely I think that approach is just useful as sun approach, for "processing" tasks, no information storing or "application rental"
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
Besides that, who wants anything but light-weight or at least, non-critical, data and applications to be out on the network. Gmail is a perfect network application, but my financial software or any number of other things? No thanks.
Online tax software has proven to be very popular over the last couple years, so not everyone shares your qualms.
Oh, wait, that was two buzzword generations ago. How many words are there for "mainframe" anyway?
Have you read my blog lately?
Except that people can easily buy enough power to satisfy their needs for a small premimum on top of what a terminal costs. Look at around at the so called thin-clients available. Even the thinnest of them has enough power to be a "fat-client" with substantial processing power.
Add on top of that people have routinely rejected thin-clients. Bandwidth and latency are big problems. I expect acess to my files and data with low latency. That means viewing my 8MB digital photos without waiting for part of all of it to come over a wire. I expect it to be available to me all the time.
Google is great, but Google is not above the law of physics. People - just average users - have 20 or 30 or 40 or 80 gb of data on their PCs. No matter how great Google gets, providing this amount of data quickly, securely, with low latency and high-availablity will prove out of reach. Even with Google's highly skilled team of programmers, making a decently response web-mail client, or map tool is a pain in the ass. And it's still below par. Despite how great Gmail is, it's not nearly a rich as Thunderbird or Outlook 2003.