GoogleOS Scenarios

ReadWriteWeb writes "Read/WriteWeb offers 3 scenarios for a GoogleOS and suggests it could be less than 6 months away. They say it may be a web based desktop (aka WebOS), a full featured Linux distribution, or a lightweight Linux distro and/or BIOS. They predict that once Microsoft's Vista rolls out, it will present a direct threat to Google's Web properties and so therefore Google will start a more punchy strategy — pushing Firefox and some form of Google OS in order to nullify Vista's potential impact."

Comments

So in other words

[ats-tech]

"They say it may be a web based desktop (aka WebOS), a full featured Linux distribution, or a lightweight Linux distro and/or BIOS."

They have no idea.

Re:So in other words

[AKAImBatman]

They have no idea.

That's pretty much it. The so-called "analysts" are regularly baffled by Google, primarily because they don't seem to understand them. Google does things according to what makes the most sense from a logical perpective, not necessarily what makes them the most money in the short term. (Or at least, what seems to make them the most money.) These analysts don't understand that mode of thinking, and expect Google to fit in the same box as everyone else.

Re:So in other words

[diersing]

Analyst tend to focus on past trends and performance, Google baffles them because they ARE that different a company.

Re:So in other words

[headLITE]

They have no idea.

It's not just that they don't know what GoogleOS might be; it's worse. Quite frankly, they have no idea what they're talking about at all.

Re:So in other words

[Ruff_ilb]

Maybe it's simply because Google hasn't been around for that long, but has done so much.

I'm sure analysts were doing the same sort of things during the first 24 months of MSFT or so.

Re:So in other words

[Anonymous Coward]

It could be a hamster with a pencil and a laser pointer for all they know.

Re:So in other words

[breed13]

Maybe Google is just reading what the analysts are saying and then moving in another direction... This is Google's way of revealing how little analysts actually know about anything... Of course, this could also be my bias against analysts coming to the surface... I'm tired of hearing how company XYZ's stock price was driven up (or down) by analyst A's comments... (Let the "correlation not causation" debate begin!)

Re:So in other words

[Anonymous Coward]

They know that it may or may not exist, that it may or not be an operating system, and that they may or may not just be pulling shit out of their asses.

Re:So in other words

[networkBoy]

I'll skip the debate, but I'm fairly certain that at least a couple people are using their 20% on an OSS OS project. Frankly I think Google should support Ubuntu or some other ultra friendly distro for their desktop OS should they ever do it.
-nB

Re:So in other words

[LocoBurger]

I agree that these analysts have no idea, but they don't leave it up in the air in the way that you characterize. They conclude with "Conclusion: GoogleOS will tackle Microsoft's Vista OS head on". Sounds totally insane and stupid to me, but they are firm in their conclusion.

Clueless analysts? Yes. Conclusion? Yeah, but it's also clueless.

Re:So in other words

[postmortem]

Only thing they ("analysts") understand is that unless they put out baseless claims frequently, they are out of job.

Re:So in other words

[btaranto]

Will be an a BSD based distribution.
A BSD Terminal Server Project.
Everybody in the world will boot over you OS over ethernet and EVERYTHING will be hosting at google's world(servers)!

Back to pass... is simple!

Re:So in other words

[14CharUsername]

I think this is just a message to MS: "If you don't play nice with vista, this is what we can do..."

I think the amount of money to be made from Desktop OS's is going to take a drop, even for MS. Piracy is going to continue to take a chunk of business no matter how much MS pushes WGA and DRM. But an even bigger problem is that most people just don't need that many features from an OS. the Office, IE, and Windows lock in schemes are being chipped away by increased competition and anti-trust rulings. Computers aren't going to keep improving geometrically forever, so people will stop replacing their computers every couple of years, and that means less bundled copies of windows being sold.

Now these same conditions also affect Linux. I don't think a Desktop Linux distro could do much more than break even. There's money to be made on servers, but not as many people will bother paying for support for their desktop. So Google probably doesn't really want to do a Linux desktop distro, its far easier to let Mark Shuttleworth dump his time and money into it. But if Microsoft gets up to their usual dirty tricks with vista... well buying ubuntu and puting a few billion into improving it is a good strategy to prevent Google from becoming another Netscape.

Re:So in other words

[concept10]

This guy isn't an analyst, he just someone inside of the "Web 2.0" hype-machine ring, along with Richard MacManus and Michael Arrington. They only exist to drive page views and traffic for ads on those boring blogs.

Re:So in other words

[itz2000]

They covered all their options in this sentence.

It's like saying : Tomorrow will be rainy, sunny, between or some of the mentioned above.

Re:So in other words

[mr_mischief]

The biggest ways I see Google being different from most companies in tech is that they are not into competing in well-established markets. Google has a tendency either to redefine the whole meaning and level of a market segment (like they did with search and Gmail), to invent whole new markets where they are the first company present (placing context-relevant ads on many, many websites), or get in to markets where therre are a few small players but they're going to be the only big one (online office suites that actually work).

It's a strategic company, not a tactical company. I think most companies think tactically. Most analysts almost certainly do. Google is so hard to analyze because they don't do what other companies do. Other companies look at what's out there and try to be better or to market better. Sometimes they try something new. Google just keeps doing new things, and the ones that stick to the wall stick hard.

Google doesn't focus on maximizing packaged units or hitting the sweet spot on the existing promotion cost/ROI curve. They are about moving the promotion cost/ROI curve to a new level by building strong user loyalty, and waiting for everyone else to catch up. Then they move on to another market curve where they do the same again.

The way they build strong user loyalty is often to make simple things simple to do. MS Office can do more than Google Spreadsheets and Google Documents. But Google's offerings work from just about every device you own, do everything you need to do for most documents, don't have to be installed, and only cost you the price of looking at ads (and maybe a bit of privacy). Google's search engine gets uncannily good results without going into the advanced search, and still has the advanced search when you need it.

I'm not a Google insider or anything, but I'd bet their products are dreamed up by brainstorming techies rather than market researchers. Then, the usability experts probably do the UI before graphic designers ever touch it. Marketing probably just markets what is ready for people to see, and of course most marketing for Google is just posting a notice on their sites anyway.

Re:So in other words

[Anonymous Coward]

Replying as an "anonymous coward" just because I don't have the time and interest in creating yet another account so that I get more junk mail.

Coming to the point, I don't see Google "inventing whole new markets" most of the time. I agree that they are a highly innovative bunch as far as search and placing contextual ads and making tons of money from it. But when it comes to other products like GMail, GTalk, Google Docs, Maps, etc they are not the pioneers. With each of the products mentioned there were other companies like Yahoo, MS, MapQuest, etc that got into the market much ahead of Google. And years after Google got in most of these products haven't caught on and may never will (time will tell).

If someone else comes up with a better search engine and makes more money from ads then Google is down the drains since most of their products don't generate any revenue.

Re:So in other words

[martin-boundary]

I think you don't understand PhDs. Have you ever heard the saying "managing PhDs is like herding cats"? Google have a lot of phd level employees, who tend to do what they find interesting. In a nutshell, this means that Google can't so much direct its employees from the top, but rather picks up and runs with projects that seem promising as and when they spontaneously appear.

That's what makes it difficult for analysts to predict. There's no overall world domination plan (if you ignore trite sayings like "do no evil" and "indexing all the world's information"), instead it's pure evolution and survival of the fittest project. Or if you like, Google holds a portfolio of talent and tries to maximize returns.

PhDs are great, but you've got to trust them, you can't direct them, as anyone who's ever worked in academia knows.

Re:So in other words

[henleg]

I must say that this was possibly the most accurate analysis today ;)

Re:So in other words

[cthulhu11]

Google would seem to have taken over the search market via a catchy name and more intelligent ranking of results, and unless I'm missing something, both their search and gmail both did emerge in arenas with Lycos/Yahoo/AltaVista and Yahoo/Hotmail. Google stuff works on just about every device I own? Hmmm, not having much luck searching on my printer.

Re:So in other words

[ejp1082]

Giving credit where credit is due, they may not have invented some of these markets, but they did re-invent them. GMail was definitely pioneering, both with its use of AJAX for the UI and offering 1 GB of storage at a time when Hotmail and Yahoo were offering 2 and 6 mb, respectively. Do you think either of those companies would have bumped their own storage offerings and come up with their own modern interfaces if not for Google?

Same thing with maps. Google introduced the draggable map and satellite imagery overlays, and again we see the market leaders moving to catch up.

Google doesn't necessarily get into markets first, but they do have a propensity for disrupting them via real innovation. Few other companies can claim to do that.

Waiting

[sethwm2]

I have been waiting for this for a long time. I found an article in a mag about google doing this years ago. Can't wait

Re:Waiting

[diersing]

Can't wait.

Yet you've no idea what you are waiting for, odd.

Re:Waiting

[duh P3rf3ss3r]

I'm waiting for Godot. Have you seen him? He should have been here yesterday...

Re:Waiting

[Anonymous Coward]

Have a carrot.

The list is missing something

[J. T. MacLeod]

It's not a proper fake news unless it speculates on BeOS, too.

Re:The list is missing something

[andphi]

You neglected to mention the Phantom console's main launch title: Duke Nukem Forever.

Re:The list is missing something

[tttonyyy]

It's not a proper fake news unless it speculates on BeOS, too.

No need to speculate.

Re:The list is missing something

[wexsessa]

Come back, Ted Nelson. It's time for another try with Xanadu.

Re:The list is missing something

[BalkanBoy]

What's wrong with Google taking BeOS (or Haiku OS or whatever it's called now) and fully developing it? Beats dwelling on Linux or Mac OS X for a friendly desktop GUI. Google has the megaballs to swing something of that magnitude.

Arg

[GigsVT]

What compels people that know nothing about technology to keep writing these "Google OS" articles? Do they even understand what an OS is?

MS bought into this "web OS" hype over 5 years ago. It was stupid then, and it's stupid now.

Re:Arg

[danpsmith]

What compels people that know nothing about technology to keep writing these "Google OS" articles? Do they even understand what an OS is?

Nope, and they don't know what an office suite is either apparently, as they attempted to call a dumbed down version of a word processor and the most basic spreadsheet application imaginable combined with gmail an "office suite." It's all hype about MS vs. Google. In all honesty, I believe the two have fairly distinct offerings, even if MS wishes it had Google's as well as its own to offer.

Re:Arg

[Harry_Ballsak]

and it will be stupid tomorrow. I can't think of any reason why I would use this "WebOS"

News that matters?

[solevita]

More like science fiction for people with nothing better to do.

I'm not trolling, but this is why I have yet to subscribe to /.

AIEEEE!!!

[$RANDOMLUSER]

"The GoogleOS, they do nothing!"

Re:AIEEEE!!!

[blankFrank]

In Soviet webspace, OS googles YOU!

Re:AIEEEE!!!

[Raul654]

Hilarious! Oh my lord, you just made my day.

BSD

[Hijacked Public]

I think it will be a full featured BSD distro.

Or maybe the return of BeOS.

Or NeXT.

You might download the ISO and run it off a CD. You might not. Maybe BIOS will be involved. Possibly even TCP/IP. It will probably include some kind of menuing system and maybe a ribbonish banner that can be docked somewhere on the desktop or not, that might include items like Vista's Gadgets or OSX application launching capability or possibly some blend of both. Almost certainly the web will be involved.

Or none of the above, who knows.

Re:BSD

[gEvil (beta)]

But it will DEFINITELY be Web2.0. Or maybe even Web2.1!

Re:BSD

[tigersha]

NeXT is already back. It's called MacOS/X now, but its pretty much an evolution? Don't believe me? Look up the API for Cocoa and be amazed about why ALL the things there are called NSthis and NSthat.

Re:BSD

[MindStalker]

Web2.1? Rubbish it'll be Web3.0!!!! //Sadly I've already heard talk of Web3.0 in rubbish tech articles. Its suppositivly a network backed by AI to offer you the services you want.

HAHAH

Re:BSD

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Question: Is there ANY reason to think Google is even remotely working on their own OS (in any of the forms you mentioned...?) or is this one of those things where the rumor came up enough times it's taken a life of its own?

Re:BSD

[An ominous Cow art]

Or AmigaOS. I'd pay for that :-).

Re:BSD

[maxwell demon]

Its suppositivly a network backed by AI to offer you the services you want.

No. That one is called Skynet.

Re:BSD

[ChunkyLoverYYZ]

Whatever the solution, it will be blue.

Re:BSD

[Repton]

No, no, no, Google is all about search, remember?

So, what you'll do is, first you'll search for the account you want to log in as. Once you've found it and logged in, you'll have to search for the application you want to run. Like, say you're working on a presentation. You might search for "presentation slideshow application pretty". Then, if you're working on a document you've opened before, you'll have to search for it, and hope it still has a good pagerank. Or, if you're making a new document, you'll search for storage space on the internet to save it.

It's all part of Web 4.0, where the users are freed from having to worry about what application to use, or what document to write, and it taps into the open-source "many eyeballs" system, where other people will be able to improve your documents for you, or Google will be able to find better ones that you can use instead.

It'll be a stepping stone towards Web 5.0, when Google realises that everything people can do with computers boils down to searching for the right bitstrings amongst the set of all bitstrings, and Web 6.0, when Google's develops search algorithms that can search for the sorts of searches that you should be searching for, and people finally become obsolete.

Re:BSD

[flydpnkrtn]

If you say this in your head as Peter from Family Guy it makes it oh so much more funny :)

Broadband addiction

[Gothmolly]

How is something like this going to run on non-broadband? MS can compete there because, well, you bought a real PC with a real OS. Google's going to be heavily reliant on bandwidth if they do anything more than an über-lightweight Linux GUI. You could argue that the non-broadband people don't matter, but they're still a significant piece of market share.

Re:Broadband addiction

[Threni]

> How is something like this going to run on non-broadband?
Same as the answer to the question - how is this going to run on systems with 16MB ram, a 256 colour display and no cd-writer:

Who cares?

Re:Broadband addiction

[Slipgrid]

How is something like this going to run on non-broadband?

They will give everyone free broadband.

http://wifi.google.com/

Re:Broadband addiction

[z0idberg]

non-broadband (or at least non-internet connected) users DON'T matter to Google.

Google is all about advertising and AdSense/Adwords. If you arent on the net you arent in their target market.

Non-broadband people might be a significant part of the OS market but they arent a significant part of Googles market.

Re:Broadband addiction

[neersign]

The answer we were looking for was: Very carefully.

I award you no points.

Re:Broadband addiction

[Anonymous Coward]

Who cares?

There are still a sizable chunk of dial-up users who STILL, after like FIVE FREAKING YEARS of waiting, haven't gotten the DSL Verizon said would be available "in a month or two".

Not that I'm one of them, of course.

Seriously, though, I think the cable companies woke up to the fact that it's not cost-effective to run cable or DSL pipes across rural America. And, chances are, if you're still on dial up, you arn't interested in upgrading to some "google OS" from good ol' Windows ME. Unless you're me.

Re:Broadband addiction

[electrosoccertux]

Right, because its not like Google doesn't reguarly give AOL money to keep Google the default AOL search engine.

Last I checked, sending text is not bandwidth intensive. So neither is AdSense.

When I go back to dialup at my grandma's house, Google is one of the few websites that still _feels_ fast. Plenty of dialup customers use Google. Saying these dialup customers don't matter is simply foolish.

Re:Broadband addiction

[ACMENEWSLLC]

How? Easy.
http://wiki.ltsp.org/twiki/bin/view/Ltsp/WebHome

Citrix for example was designed to run over dialup modems.

We're not talking gaming machines at this point. Nor video editing computers. We are talking about computers that can surf the web and can do office productivity stuff. This is a major portion of the desktop. Think corporate.

If you can boot the computer up into enough of a Linux X to display a decent graphics resolution and color depth, you can just transfer the screen updates to the client.

If we are talking about something like Office, you don't even need to have a complex rendering system. It's not to difficult to tell the client to draw a bunch of squares with numbers in them.

As everyone has pointed out, who knows what Google is thinking. But it is an option. It was an option 10 years ago, but Microsoft bought and killed off the companies working in this area.

Re:Broadband addiction

[Gothmolly]

Idiot, we're not talking about using Google as a search engine, we're talking about running an OS over your Internet pipe. Last I checked, mounting / over a 33.6K link was slow.

KDE, Gnome or Java?

[bogaboga]

A Google OS? Well, can't wait to see it live. Now, can someone knowledgeable advise on what this OS is likely to be running on its interface. Is it likely to be KDE, Gnome or some GUI patched up using the recently open sourced Java?

Re:KDE, Gnome or Java?

[solevita]

Considering that this OS has been denied, and mocked, by Google, I don't think you're going to get any sort of insider info. Google fanboys, just like those that follow Apple, love inventing products for their favourite company to release and spending days discussing features and details that exist only in their imagination.

Sorry.

Re:KDE, Gnome or Java?

[Jugalator]

Now, can someone knowledgeable advise on what this OS is likely to be running on its interface.

Google hasn't even said they're making one.

Jeez.

It's stupidities like these articles that makes people think there's actually some work being done on something here.

Google is not making a GoogleOS, at least not for public use, or in that case, it hasn't been announced.

They have not even hinted on it. They have however debunked they're making one when asked.

Re:KDE, Gnome or Java?

[CastrTroy]

Yes, but Google also denied making an office suite, and then they came out with a word processor and a spreadsheet. Mind you, it's not an office suite in the way MS Office or OO.o is, but it's still an office suite.

Re:KDE, Gnome or Java?

[Hijacked Public]

They could deny making an office suite today and I would still believe them.

Re:KDE, Gnome or Java?

[LindseyJ]

If that's what they have to offer in the 'office suite' department, I'll stick with MSO, thanks.

Re:KDE, Gnome or Java?

[oohshiny]

I doubt Java would meet anybody's desktop quality standards.

KDE has the problem that commercial software development for it is far more expensive than for Gnome, Windows, or Macintosh. People may like KDE, but when push comes to shove for big companies like Sun, IBM, or Google to support a desktop platform, KDE is a non-starter.

So, I think if Google were to pick a desktop, it would be Gnome or a modified version of it.

6 months?

[le0p]

Maybe after the 10 year beta test.

Google OS

[MeNeXT]

Linux/FreeBSD, Gnome/KDE, OOo, Firefox, Gaim, on Wii and PS3. At $50 a CD just the Wii with 4 million units to be released by the end of the year it would be a killing.

They wouldn't need to develop it just negotiate with Ubuntu. It's easier to maintain than Windows.

I've even sent Nintendo an email last year. To bad I don't have the finances to fund this.

Re:Google OS

[@madeus]

The Wii is the only of the latest generations of console that isn't HD capable, it's not feasible to use a display at Standard Definition resolutions for things like email or web browsing or modern GUI based productivity software. It's just a horrible experience (as demonstrated by Web TV).

This makes the PS3 the only viable option, unless it's just a distribution intended to allow viewing of specificly tailored made-for-tv-viewing content (e.g. news stories in large print and videos - with a custom interface to Google Videos/YouTube). I don't think mainstream PS3 users are going to have any interest in using it as a computer though, that will be restricted to the same sort of people who were into modding X-Boxes to do the same thing.

For anyone who does want a PC, it's a LOT cheaper just to buy a computer at your local Wall Mart / ASDA, complete with TFT display and Windows than it is to buy a PS3. The only thing about the PS3 running Linux to me, is that it means it ought to be very easy to turn it into a flexible media center, but I'm waiting to find out more about Apple's "iTV" system in January.

Re:Google OS

[MeNeXT]

You talk but you haven't looked at the specs. The ATI cards on the Wii are capable of better resolution that the Walmart PC. The graphics card in the system in which I am typing is capable of over 1600x1200 but i'd be an idiot to try to play HD games on it. This card is over 7 years old. The image is crisp and clear. HD game play is another matter.

Adding the component cables can give you 1080i resolution on a monitor that can handle it, which would be 1440 pixels across but even at 480p you would have decent enough resolution to write an email, type a letter or document, browse the Web. I'm not talking out of my ass, I have an HD TV but unfortunately due to my satellite receiver and my TV HDMI compatibility issues it makes in annoying to watch regular TV on HDMI due to the frequent resets(this is another issue). The display characteristics under HDMI 1080i and component video 1080i are barely noticeable.

My Wii is connected with RCA cables, I ordered the component cables and can hardly wait. The Wii license agreement was very clear at 8', and they only used half the screen. If they used the full screen they could clearly display any site, email and word document very clearly.

The Wii with it's current design is more powerful than any cheep system at Walmart at the current price level. I will not even try to compare a PS3. The Wii has better specs than my G3, and my G3 is great for email, typing documents, Web, chat.....

Re:Google OS

[bigpat]

they wouldn't need to develop it just negotiate with Ubuntu. It's easier to maintain than Windows.

Isn't it common knowledge that google engineers are regular contributors to Ubuntu already or is this just an unsubstantiated rumor? Seems that Google could just re brand a version of Ubuntu to give the name some marketing weight and continue to contribute back to the Ubuntu project.

Bigger thing would be to set up some deals with at least a few top computer makers to do a good job of offering their computers with GoogleOS or Ubuntu preinstalled. Ideally they could get at least 3 of these manufacturers on board: Dell, HP, Fujitsu, Toshiba, NEC, Sony, Lenovo Group and Gateway. Google could be a very powerful sales and marketing ally for any of those companies. Basically, any company except Dell should jump at the chance to offer a Google OS installed computer if Google helps with direct marketing and sales. Dell and HP would be key of course as the top sellers of PCs, but I think a good business relationship with google could propel a smaller company into higher sales. Even a more democratic approach and a focus on smaller computer makers with combined sales that still make up a larger portion of the market, could give google the kind of market penetration that would keep Microsoft competing on its own turf.

Re:Google OS

[@madeus]

"You talk but you haven't looked at the specs."

Nope, your just confused I think.

"Adding the component cables can give you 1080i resolution on a monitor that can handle it"

Not so - the Wii does not support 720p, never mind 1080i or 1080p - so adding a component cable won't automagically result in it outputing anything higher than 480p (it will just give you a less blury picture than you'd get from using the bundled composite cable).

"even at 480p you would have decent enough resolution to write an email, type a letter or document, browse the Web"

480p (in square pixels) gives you a screen resolution of 640x480. Most people are going to disagree with you about that being a decent resolution. Even Windows XP knows that 640x480 isn't a workable desktop resolution, and alerts the user that their display resolution is too low if it's not set to at least 800x600.

The Wii has better specs than my G3, and my G3 is great for email, typing documents, Web, chat.....

I really hope your G3 can do more than 640x480! I keep my old G3 around for kicks (along with my Mac Plus), but the G3 desktop range is 10 years old now. It is not, by any stretch of the imagination, 'great' for browsing the web IME.

Re:Google OS

[TranscendentalAnarch]

You're missing the point, the Wii might not able to display games at higher than 480i, but the ATI graphics chip in the Wii is more than capable of displaying a desktop at 720p or 1080i.  Shouldn't take more than a quick hack from nintendo to make it possible.

My wishos

[cucucu]

I wish Google (or someone) did the following OS:

• My computer image is hosted somewhere, is always with up to date software, upgrades are tranparent
  
• There are a lot of access tiers:
  
  • An ajax based command line for pro users.
    
  • Google spreadsheet and Google docs let you browse and edit the files in your desktop
    
  • Specialized software lets you login with remote desktop or X windows or whatever
    
  
  
• I can run servers on my computer
  
• If I don't the provider can park my image while I'm not logged in
  
• They provide a database if I want to run a server
  

Re:My wishos

[cucucu]

(second time today I click on Submit instead of preview. Can't ./ add a confirmation alert before proceeding?)

• If I run a server I also have a static IP
  
• They can charge for some of the services, with a pricing model similar to the Amazon EC2. I.e. 1$ per Gygabyte, .10 per hour CPU, .10 per hour static IP
  
• I guess they would charge for those who run the server option
  
• The web & db scale automatically
  
• Bandwidth is free within the provider's environment - this is very interesting for Google, they could absorve all the Web into their datacenters.
  

my 2 cents

Re:My wishos

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you want fries with that too ?

Re:My wishos

[Slipgrid]

I like the idea of Google hosting my OS and my web servers. I bet they would do it, since I'm an Adsense user.

Re:My wishos

[Anonymous Coward]

Missing option:

* Moon on a stick
* Cowboyneal

Re:My wishos

[foobsr]

this is very interesting for Google, they could absorve all the Web into their datacenters

Which is what they are up to - like creating the biggest (post TV & print) market research engine & advertising machine ever thought of. VNU, Taylor Nelson Sofres etc. will be dwarfed.

CC.

Re:My wishos

[DigitalRaptor]

The problem with this is if the computer image is hosted by Google, it either has to be transferred to your machine in it's entirety and be run there, or left at Google and run there.

Due to the current limits of even the best broadband and the impatience of humanity, the first option isn't feasible.

The problem with the second option is that it puts the entire CPU load on the Google servers and your machine just becomes a terminal. Google's infrastructure is setup for massive storage, but not that kind of massive computing.

But for most people a basic Linux OS with OpenOffice and a few other app, and a browser with access to the web is all they need.

The kicker is games. 90%+ of our computing is (IMHO) driven by the requirements of gaming.

Re:My wishos

[tomjen]

there is no way to absorb all the material inside any datacenter. There is simply too much information on the WWW. Look at the amount of info in the wayback archive.

Re:My wishos

[newt0311]

that really is a very interesting and comprehensive list butmisses the point that OSes ARE LOW lEVEL SOFTWARE. the purpose of an OS is to arbitrate between software and hardware. everything else is an added application suite. what you say there would be better accomplished by a group of apps which do this transparently for you. if said apps were written in java of .NET/mono, they could even run on multiple platforms but they ARE NOT AN OS. OSes are memory management, process management, hardware device drivers, VFS layers, etc. and those things have no place on a remote server.

They wouldn't make it themselves...

[ChowRiit]

While it wouldn't suprise me if Google wanted their own OS, from their past history it seems more likely they'd buy their way into the OS market somehow rather than developing it entirely in-house. I would have thought any GoogleOS would be after a string of relevant corporate takeovers and purchases, which would make it rather obvious...

Re:They wouldn't make it themselves...

[domc]

I doubt it. If Google released any kind of OS, it would most likely be Linux-based (possibly an existing distro), and that could be rather discreet.

Catalyst?

[Demarche]

Potential catalyst for non-windows game development?

Re:Catalyst?

[brunascle]

oh god i just creamed my pants.

if so, let's hope it's *nix based, for compatibility purposes.

Re:Catalyst?

[Harry_Ballsak]

this would be awesome because that is the only reason why I'm still stuck to windows, now we need a WoW version for the GoogleOS!!!

Hope

[Lex-Man82]

Personally I hope that if they realise there own OS it's more than a Linux distro, we have enough already. Why can't they help popularise another distro they could start selling Google based PC's and Laptops with Ubuntu or somthing.

If they have to release there own OS can't they develop there own one using new technology.

Re:Hope

[Anonymous Coward]

Why can't they help popularise another distro they could start selling Google based PC's and Laptops with Ubuntu or somthing.

Because no one would buy one? Retail giant Wal-Mart tried it with Lindows or some crap, and that idea sank like a brick. Dell tried it too and people paid to avoid having to use Linux.

Face it: Linux will never make it to the desktop in any great numbers.

Re:Hope

[Lex-Man82]

I may be wrong but Dell only sell Linux based servers not desktops.
Also I think that while Linux may only have a nish market it would still be a profitable indevevor . I would happily buy a Linux base laptop if I didn't have to pay over the odds for one. It seems to be impossible to get one here in the UK.

Also with a little support from Google Ubutuntu might be able to offer GUI support for WPA wireless networks. Which would help me a lot as I can't seem to get my machine to connect to them.

Re:Hope

[CastrTroy]

If we get to vote on Distros, I'd much rather they use Mandriva. I've tried Ubuntu and I don't see what all the hype is about. I find Mandriva a lot easier to set up, and manage. What is it that people find so appealing about Ubuntu?

Re:Hope

[Lex-Man82]

I don't think it would really matter what Distro they used, they could even offer a selection. Just the fact that somone was selling Linux based home computers would be cool.

Re:Hope

[Anonymous Coward]

Their. Their is the word that we use to indicate that "they" own something. "There" is the word that we use to indicate that something is not "here."

Re:Hope

[cparker15]

Linux is so bloated... I think Google should fund HURD development to finally get it out the door. The HURD seems more like it would be up Google's alley than Linux. They could call the OS Gnugle | Gnoogle. ;)

Please don't click this unethical story.

[Anonymous Coward]

It was submitted by the blogger himself, and the website is more than 40% advertisement. Here is the article text:

Written by Emre Sokullu and edited by Richard MacManus.

There's no such thing as the GoogleOS in reality - but despite that, it is one of the most talked about Web products. People can't stop discussing it - and even imagining screenshots for it! Seems like everyone expects Google to get into direct competition with Microsoft, by releasing an operating system. However Google refuses such claims and even makes fun of this kind of buzz. Nevertheless we decided to analyze where Google may be heading with their product strategy - and from that determine what are the chances of a GoogleOS.
Possibilities

We see 3 scenarios for a GoogleOS:

* A web based desktop (i.e. operating system)
* A full featured Linux distribution
* A lightweight Linux distro and/or BIOS

We'll try to explain each of these in detail - then in the conclusion, make our prediction. What's more, we think this could be less than 6 months away from happening.
A Web Based Operating System

If you asked "what will a GoogleOS look like?" - most people would answer that it'll be an AJAX-powered copy of the Windows desktop. In other words, a WebOS (aka webtop). To remind you of what a WebOS is, it is basically a virtual desktop on the web and has various built-in applications. Google already has a history of producing web-based products that mimic desktop apps - Gmail was the first desktop client like email reader, and now they have Google Docs & Spreadsheets, Google Calendar and other desktop-like products. Also note that Google's internal open sourced widget toolset, GWT, allows them to replicate any desktop capability.

On the other hand, a bunch of startups like YouOS , Goowy, DesktopTwo, Xin and open source eyeOS are already tackling this exact problem - and have been for a while now. So if Google engineers are not already working on their own webOS project, they may want to snap up one of these! AJAX powered YouOS, which is a yet another Paul Graham investment, seems like the most obvious choice at this time.

Screenshot from YouOS

Besides the startups we've already mentioned, there may be other surprises that Google looks at for WebOS purposes. Meebo, for instance, has created a very large user base with their web-based meta instant messaging product (it enables you to use multiple IM services on the same webpage). IM is a crucial application, because many people spend a lot of time on the computer IM'ing. So Meebo could use IM as a base - and utilize the empty spaces on their page for new applications.

Meebo OS with fictional Calculator application (taken from YouOS)

30 Boxes also has a webtop offering, but it looks less promising than their calendar. Start pages like NetVibes, PageFlakes and WebWag could also potentially enter the webos business.
A Full Featured Linux Distro

Another possibility for Google is to create their own Linux-based operating system. The free license of Linux allows anyone to create their own version of Linux. Although Linux is the most popular operating system in the server market and it's free, it is still far behind Windows and MacOS in the desktop market. Some believe this may change with the latest enhancements to the Linux user interface.

This scenario is a more traditional model to replace Windows - with a direct competitor, instead of creating a web-based replacement. Indeed this has already been widely speculated - Ubuntu, a semi-free Linux derivative, was rumored to be acquired by Google.

If this scenario happened, Google may open up their operating system as a free download and promote it on their homepage - as they once did with Firefox. They could also make a networked file system the default, instead of the complex UNIX file hierarchy of Linux - which is another reason why Linux struggles in the mainstream

Re:Please don't click this unethical story.

[DerekLyons]

From TFA:
 

Gmail was the first desktop client like email reader

Methinks the original writer has never actually actually used a desktop email program. Compared to Eudora (or even (shudder) Outlook) Gmail lacks important features (like being able to sort your mail by sender, title, date....).

The Thin Client

[Slipgrid]

I think the way that Google will go is to make thin client apps that will run on any old computer. They could use a simple file system to install on peoples old and insecure desktops to secure them, and have something to run Firefox or whatever client will access their products. And they will have all their other apps put together in a nice form or package. Whatever file system people install on their desktops will allow them to install third party software.

Really it's a hard sale for most people. Do you want all your info, or say just all your email, documents, video, and whatever else (depending on what products they create) on Google servers. Does Google want to compete with M$ in this arena? Of course the Google OS would be free as in beer with labels. I'm not sure.

I think the more likely scenario would be a Google OS for Servers. To be sure, they are using a custom file system, and they have that down pat. An end-user product is less likely. If it isn't perfect, they likely won't release it.

Re:The Thin Client

[Anonymous Coward]

You should pad this comment out some and post it in a blog somewhere, then submit to Slashdot. You'd probably make the front page.

Mention 'file system' another half dozen times. Maybe add your thoughts on how Linux is distributed under a free license that lets anyone make changes to it. I'd use the words 'underlying code'.

The dollar sign M$ thing is great, it gets the kids all foaming at the mouth. Durn Microsoft! When will we be free from your chains!

And imply that all the software Google releases is perfect, even the stuff that never gets out of beta which is most of it. Like their spreadsheet application, how perfectly it blits out rectangles to the screen and pretty much that is all it does but it does it so perfectly well that those idiots on the M$ Ex$el programming team are probably cleaning out their offices in anticipatory capitulation.

File system.

Secure.

Thin client.

Data.

Freedom.

Terrorists.

Internet.

Happy I could help you out. I look forward to reading you on the front page!

Re:The Thin Client

[zappepcs]

I think the parent poster is not far off. From the experience that I have had, shoving a live CD in the tray and booting is an impressive thing for people with some old hardware and requirements for not much more than web browsing and writing emails. The fact that its free, does what they want, doesn't take long to get used to, and can be virtually virii free with a reboot (depending on whether files are stored on the hard drive, if it is even used) is a big bonus for neophytes... or at least those I have had dealings with. Remember, I did say their requirements were in the low to nil levels, they are not gamers or graphics artists. There is a huge, yet relatively unnoticed population that fits this bill.

If Google puts out a live CD like AOL disks, and adds cheap dial-up and/or free access to applications via Google.net or similar, its will be an EASY SELL to a LOT of people who have low requirements for working on the Internet. I'd guess this userbase would easily hit the millions here in North America, and who knows how many globally. It wouldn't be a one size fits all answer, but it would batter the hell out of the AOL customer base!

Re:The Thin Client

[DarkGreenNight]

They don't need a thin client. Heck, they don't need to make and sell an OS. All Google has to do is provide a set of bookmarks.

They already have an almost complete office clone, email program and several other interesting things (video, calendar, calculator, ...). With some personal bookmarks (games, news, interesting links and /.) you almost don't need the real OS that you are using except for saving things for offline use and for some games.

The GoogleOS is already out, it's called internet, and it's open to everyone. The average person needs a browser and a IM program of his choice and it's set to go (well, and P2P applications for "educational" purposes).

Re:The Thin Client

[Slipgrid]

I agree for the most part, but then why don't most people use it. Because they have old computers running unsupported and unsecured versions of Windows ME, which I don't believe you can run Firefox on. You can run Google's office programs on the old computer, but good luck getting the spy and ad ware off of it. People will throw away these machines, because of the spy and ad ware, when they would be fine for Google's programs. Google doesn't want people to buy new computers with the new Windows OS to run the Google apps. If people could keep their old computers, and use a Google boot CD to run some thin OS that give them secured web browsing, and if they repackage their apps, then they might have something.

Re:The Thin Client

[Anonymous Coward]

Very funny, and right on.

Re:The Thin Client

[Anonymous Coward]

So Larry Ellison's New Internet Computer (NIC) concept was simply ahead of its time? http://news.com.com/Ellisons+NIC+Co.+to+shut+down/ 2100-1042_3-1012119.html "The devices, which had no hard drive and ran off a version of Linux stored on a CD-ROM, initially sold for $199 without a monitor." "The NIC Co. was the last company truly promoting the concept of a Web-surfing appliance as an alternative to a low-cost PC. It was an idea that flourished briefly in the late 1990s, with 3Com, Sony, Gateway, Compaq Computer and Netpliance all pushing such devices. However, all eventually pulled the plug after limited sales."

Re:The Thin Client

[Slipgrid]

Yes, and why? The Microsoft monopoly. This was predicted fifteen years ago. Fifteen years ago, we also knew that search was the hardest problem in computing. Search and sorting are very slow and processor intensive. I think it's fitting that the company that gave us a good way to search and sort large amounts of data will also be the one to give us the thin client machines, because they know how to build the apps for it, and they know it has always been the way to go.

That being said, public transportation, such as the train, should be in every city, but it's not. Why? People love their cars. It gives them freedom. In the same respect, I love my computer, and that's one problem Google would have to solve. Or is that solved. I can use my computer, or a thin client to access their apps, so I think they are in good shape.

Google's OS

[Anonymous Coward]

So, imagine a situation where you put a computer with an image of the GoogleOS in a box, along with a bit of radioactive substance and a Geiger counter connected to the computer. The computer is set to burn the image on a CD/DVD when one of the atoms decays resulting and it's detected by the Geiger counter...

Re:Google's OS

[Anonymous Coward]

I know the endcome of this box and nucular atoms thing...
The cat will be half dead, half alive!

Re:Google's OS

[dapsychous]

Like Windows?

Lemmings

[Simon la Grue]

1. Read everyone else's clueless speculation 2. Publish your own clueless speculation 3. Get Google to laugh at you 4. Profit?!

Well, do ya? Punk?

[Rob T Firefly]

I'd like to see a Google OS, if only because I have enough of a Discordian streak to appreciate all of people's systems, work, and data based around an "I'm Feeling Lucky!" button.

Remember Kiddos

[Lullabye_Muse]

Google supports more than firefox browser wise. Google will probably move towards a WebOS vs an operating system, maybe expand their google personal search homepage - http://www.google.com/ig?hl=en . But yeah I doubt they go all firefox as that would alienate so many people and is as much a bad idea as going all ie would be for them. Proprietary anything is bad.

OR

[luguvalium2]

How about a virtual os that is optimised for web use that runs under vmware player. Google can manage all the configuration, updates, virus protection, malware protection (if needed) etc.

Bad tag

[Jugalator]

GoogleOS isn't vaporware as it hasn't been announced for a public release by Google.
There was some news about Google using a custom *nix based OS internally, and it has indeed been deployed.

That it's not even vaporware also says a bit why I think these articles are a bit useless.

Soooo ...

[spellraiser]

Let me get this straight ...

Google is expected to release an entire operating system that's supposed to compete heads on with Windows Vista, which is the result of years and years of work and billions of dollars invested? Say what you will about Windows, but it certainly is a massive behemoth with sh*tloads of functionality. You don't just shake something like that out of your sleeve in a few months.

And what's the supposed rationale behind a GoogleOS? Better integration of Windows Vista with Microsofts Live Search, or whatever they call it. Here's where the flip side of the coin comes in. Google has, for their part, invested years and years and billions of dollars in creating the best search engine out there, bar none. Is Microsoft suddenly going to undermine their user base by making their search engine integrated into Vista? I don't think so, Tim. People aren't total morons. They know how to type google.com into their search bars when they want to use a real search engine. It's no small cooincidence that the verb 'to google' has become prevalent among the English speaking, and has even been adopted and localized by many other nationalities.

There is absolutely no logical basis behind these speculations. Sheez.

Re:Soooo ...

[pubjames]

People aren't total morons.

Actually, when it comes to computers, most people are.

Re:Soooo ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, Google could release, say, Goobuntu. Ubuntu, as a relatively new OS, competes well now, and has become possibly the most popular Linux distro. What it lacks, though, is some licenses and such stuff. Because of licensing issues, Ubuntu comes without many codecs, including basic MP3 codecs. Ubuntu, also I believe because of licensing, can't include the nVidia driver into their distro. The power of Google could really boost Ubuntu with the acquisition of some licenses. And maybe some other "special" things. Google does these contests all the time, maybe they could, for example, award a stipend to the best Goobuntu contributors every now and then. Open source contributors are enthusiastic, but something like that would sure bring even more enthusiasm - and contributors.

Re:Soooo ...

[laffer1]

Exactly. Look at Windows and IE marketshare.

Re:Soooo ...

[mgblst]

Well, they could just release a google theme, atop of a finely tuned Linux distro. If they really threw their weight at it, they could get it running really well.

A better option for them, might be to fund improvements in Linux, and maybe some new applications. Spend some of that money they have for good. In fact, most companies should be doing this, the advantages are obvious. At the very least, the have fully functioning OS that they can use to bargain Microsoft prices down (by threatening to move to it!)

Re:Soooo ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Say what you will about Windows, but it certainly is a massive behemoth with sh*tloads of functionality.

You mean they finally upgraded Notepad, Paint, Solitaire and Minesweeper? Well, I'll just throw away my Ubuntu DVD and start queuing up for Vista release day, then.

Re:Soooo ...

[businessnerd]

They know how to type google.com into their search bars when they want to use a real search engine.

Actually I have come across many users who do not understand the whole typing of URLs in the address bar and are completely dependent on Google for ALL web browsing because someone (probably one of us) set it as the default page. In fact one person I know was having a problem where Google was not opening up, so I asked if it was just google or if it was every page. He replied that google was the default page and that he can't get to any other page without it. When I asked if he tried typing in another web address into the address bar, he returned a blank and confused stare. I encountered other people who used this same method of web browsing and my head almost exploded the first time I encountered this.

My point being (and I do have a point), that if the user is running vista, and he or she opens up IE7 (cause that's the default) and the first page they see is MS Live (cause that's the default), and MS Live is conveniently modeled to look almost exactly like google (can you blame them?), they probably won't even realize that it is NOT google. They will assume that this is the new Google Vista edition or something, and just continue on using MS Live. This is a serious threat to Google. Google needs to come up with a way to either compete directly in the way that MS is (which is what this article is about), or they need to educate users that they need to type in WWW.GOOGLE.COM for that Genuine Google Advantage (GGA, accept no substitutes. This would be interesting as it would involve some kind of media advertising which to my knowledge google has never done.

Re:Soooo ...

[MindStalker]

billions of dollars invested?

Google just dropped 2 (or was it 3) billion on YouTube. I don't think they are afraid of dropping a few billion to develop an operating system.
But there will be plenty of warning as any such system will have to receive lots of testing. Expect to hear rumors from employees who are forced to use this OS for their everyday work.

Re:Soooo ...

[spellraiser]

You know, funnily enough, I never bothered to check out live.com before I read your comment. I just did now, and boy does it look exactly like Google. They have copied their entire functionality and look. Like you said, a lot of people will probably think that this is the same old Google they've been using, or something close enough. I have absolutely no doubt that this is Microsoft's motivation. Then they have the gall to off-handedly suggest that Linux violates their patents. What a pathetic way to do business.

Nevertheless, I'm still not that convinced that an OS is a viable means to fight this, although it would be exciting to watch. Microsoft just simply has too tight a grip on that market. Then again, seeing that they have essentially started a war on Google with this live.com thing, maybe it's worth a shot.

Re:Soooo ...

[kripkenstein]

I agree TFA is silly. But regarding

Google is expected to release an entire operating system that's supposed to compete heads on with Windows Vista, which is the result of years and years of work and billions of dollars invested? Say what you will about Windows, but it certainly is a massive behemoth with sh*tloads of functionality. You don't just shake something like that out of your sleeve in a few months.

You don't, but you don't need to. You can create your own Linux distro in no time.

Re:Soooo ...

[MeNeXT]

Ubuntu, here today...Just combine marketing forces. Have it run on the Wii and PS3 as well as Intel. Bundle it with other FLOSS. Continue on the XP, MSOffice 2007, Win 95/98/200 compatibility and you just took out Vista with its additional restrictions. There are more compatibility issues between Vista and XP than Ubuntu and XP. That's from my experience with Vista, I could be wrong.

Re:Soooo ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Google already has an OS since all of the Google servers are run some customized Linux Kernel I believe. (They don't distribute it so they don't have to release the code). The Google OS may just be them releasing their search/cluster optimized Linux build. In reality I think that if there is to be a Google consumer OS it will just be a well done integration of their office products so that you have a single interface for Google Doc, Spreadsheet, Gmail, Calendar. Writing an OS from scratch is really really hard but thats nothing compared to competing with Linux. Microsoft's OS is just to well established to be unseated any time soon (just ask Steve Jobs). Google can't compete with Linux on price and they can't compete with Linux for number of applications. If they roll their own consumer Linux OS they are entering a very very crowded field (Ubuntu taking off so fast was unique).

Google sells ads that's what they do. The search engine G-mail they are all ways to get you to look at ads. The only thing that make sense to me is a well done integration of all of their online office products and a good file storage system. After all we will all put up with looking at add along the side of web page. I don't think anyone would tolerate ads as their desktop wallpaper

Re:Soooo ...

[14CharUsername]

They could buy Ubuntu.

Re:Soooo ...

[Anonymous Coward]

someone very smart once said this:
The moment you use the rationale "People aren't that stupid" to say why something can't happen, you've already lost the argument.

Re:Soooo ...

[dsaraujo]

The only OS I think Google could release, and they won't, it's their Linux that runs on Google's server farms.

Re:Soooo ...

[rainhill]

Is Microsoft suddenly going to undermine their user base by making their search engine integrated into Vista? I don't think so, Tim. People aren't total morons. They know how to type google.com into their search bars when they want to use a real search engine.

I am a sysadmin, come, tell me about it.

Re:Soooo ...

[BokLM]

Google is expected to release an entire operating system that's supposed to compete heads on with Windows Vista, which is the result of years and years of work and billions of dollars invested? Say what you will about Windows, but it certainly is a massive behemoth with sh*tloads of functionality. You don't just shake something like that out of your sleeve in a few months.

Hey, you don't have to start an OS from scratch. Take a Linux distro. Fork it. Then add the feature that you think are missing or will make your OS different, and you're done.

Something web-based and easy to start using...

[spiritraveller]

is what it would be. It would be something that anyone with a web browser could start using instantly.

They might then phase it into a complete operating system, perhaps by offering a lightweight Linux distro. I say lightweight, because web-based AJAX apps tend to be slower than native apps, so you want to reserve as much processing power as possible. And Google has a history of keeping things simple and lightweight.

They already have an online word processor and spreadsheet program and about 1,000 other services. It will be interesting to see what they do.

Indeed, given Google's horsepower

[Colin Smith]

I'd go for a VNC(or similar) download. You heard it here first.

Re:Indeed, given Google's horsepower

[russ1337]

You could be onto something. That is possibly what that huge 'secret' data center is all about. It's one huge server for us to be plugged in as thin clients.

Re:Indeed, given Google's horsepower

[jomegat]

That's what I think they're doing. It explains the data-center-in-a-shipping-container phenom. I also think that's why they're partnering with Sun - Sun will make the thin clients.

They'll make them cheap enough (or subsidize them). It's a compelling set up. Consumer Joe buys a thin client for $100, plugs it into his broadband connection and connects to apps running on a terminal server in the shipping container nearest his home. For less than the price of Vista or a new PC, he satisfies all his computing needs. He never has to install any software. He never has to worry about viruses. The terminal server is maintained by professional sysadmins. The heavy lifting is done in the shipping container, so the thin client is relatively "future proof". All the client ever has to do is run an X server, and that requires a fairly fixed set of resources.

The only thing I'd worry about is privacy. Maybe they'll let Joe use a thumb drive to store his data. Or maybe Joe doesn't care about his privacy. Google then has control of the desktop, so ads are not limited to the web browser. We'd better hope they stick to the "Do no evil" thing.

Re:Indeed, given Google's horsepower

[kimvette]

I like my "thick client" just fine. I never have to worry about viruses (Linux), I like having my data local because I do not have to depend on having enough bandwidth for the machine to be responsive. I like being able to control not only which applications I have installed, but which versions I have installed. I like being able to choose between Gnome/Metacity, XFCE, KDE/kwin, Compiz, Beryl, and combinations thereof.

Thanks, but no thanks. If Google does a Linux distribution (KDE-based) I'll be all over it, but a thin client? No thanks.

Re:Indeed, given Google's horsepower

[jomegat]

Yes, most of the /. community prefers a thick client. But Joe consumer doesn't know how to administer one, and that's who this would be targeted at. I'd steer clear of it myself too because of the privacy issues.

If they could offer the thin client for around $100, I'd be awfully tempted to point it out to the next friend or relative who asks me to clean the viruses off their PC. Isn't that about what the Geek Squad charges? With any luck, I'd never get bugged about an Outlook problem again.

Another reason this makes sense from a Google/Sun stand-point is because it cuts Microsoft/Dell/HP/Intuit and a host of others out of the picture.

Re:Indeed, given Google's horsepower

[russ1337]

I take your point on the bandwidth thing. Should Google suddenly expand it's free wi-fi nation wide AND offer a thin client that connects for free, not only are they taking MSFTs customer but they're undercutting the crap out of the Telco's and ISP's as well.

Peacing together the thoughts from this thread I can now see that it is not hard for Google to offer the following. Now that we (think we) know what they already have, and what we have heard they've expressed interest in:

- A super thin client (Google VNC BIOS / Damn Small / similar)
- A super cheap computer - or free OS that sets you free from Windows!
- Free Wi-Fi / free connectivity for Google users, therefore no ISP charges (all that dark fiber they own starts to get used, as well as that mother huge data centre)
- A full range of Web based (thin client) apps, suited to the home user
- No maintenance for the user - no viruses, mal-ware etc, and very good spam filtering
- Slightly better privacy than some of the other providers (e.g AOL)


What it doesn't offer - Local space for your photos, MP3's etc.

I think this has some merit. It'd certainly shake up the Internet 'industry' in the USA particularly the Telco's and DLS providers - but they've had their chance. (Think back to when the ISP forced your browser to their home page, and required you use their services. They had all the opportunity in the world to get it right, but didn't. I have no sympathy for them)

Re:Indeed, given Google's horsepower

[russ1337]

>>> What it doesn't offer - Local space for your photos, MP3's etc.

I need to add that if they offer an OS for existing PC's, they can use the hard drives and freed up 5GB that XP hoarded for MP3's and Photos!

larger target audience

[sonixtwo]

If Google were to chose a linux based os to distribute, I could see a lot more non-tech people saying "I'm gonna try googleOS" than "I'm gonna try linux"

Ah yes, ANOTHER distro...

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

They say it may be a web based desktop (aka WebOS), a full featured Linux distribution, or a lightweight Linux distro and/or BIOS.

Yes, of course, the bulk of end users are just waiting for yet another Linux distro before they drop Windows.

They predict that once Microsoft's Vista rolls out, it will present a direct threat to Google's Web properties and so therefore Google will start a more punchy strategy -- pushing Firefox and some form of Google OS in order to nullify Vista's potential impact."

Good luck with that. Say, which major hardware manufacturers have said said they will support this still-to-be-spec'ed Google OS?

hmm... speculation again...

[flosse]

I really don't think there will ever be such a thing as GoogleOS. you really think they would want to enter a market that is now pretty saturated already (OS/Linux)? I mean it would be a blank shot, yes quite a few people would use it and it might even have some novelty thing going for itself but overall OEMs would have to line up and why would they choose GoogleOS over something like Fedora, debian or Suse? I mean all those distros have a support structure already working, GoogleOS would have to start fresh, from the bottom up... I don't think that will happen.. but I can be wrong of course. In the end its all just speculation and all we can do is wait... //Flosse

games support

[Cederic]

Give it games support and the mass market will follow it.

Fail to do that and it wont get used by the people that advise other people on their software purchases.

Re:games support

[molarmass192]

No to be jerk, but "games support" has to come from the game makers, not the os makers. Linux has very good gaming infrastructure with OpenGL, SDL, and OpenAL ... it's just that most game makers don't bother to write games based on those components. Actually, the game engine makers are probably more to blame, but that's a whole other topic.

Re:games support

[bazorg]

...or make it a LiveCD that boots up on the PS3 and Wii... it's all sort of PPC, right?

Re:games support

[Cederic]

Combined with a bluetooth keyboard/mouse combo and a combined LCD monitor/TV, that's a possible approach. You'd still need to convince people to write the games for the consoles that PC games players play. MMORPGs, RTS, online FPS (I know the consoles are getting there on that one), other online games and various offline ones.

Google Apps

[Lord Ender]

Google Apps for My Domain is pretty close to being a "web-based desktop." combine this with the fact that they purchased Jot.

Because all of the heavy processing and data storage is done on the Google end of that desktop, there is nothing that is stopping them from releasing a $250, all-solid-state appliance which consists of linux/X/firefox. But that's not going to find any buyers until a large number of people are comfortable trusting all of their data to Google, and its perpetual "beta" applications. Which won't be any time soon.

If a product manufacturer is not confident enough with a product to call it anything but beta, you shouldn't trust that product.

Re:Google Apps

[Fullhazard]

The funny thing is, 'Beta' gmail has never crashed on me, and Google Earth is always stable. I can't say that for Windows. I mean, what is that by now? Zeta? Omega? PHI?

What you're doing is unethical

[Anonymous Coward]

The guy wrote this article in order to place ads on it and make a little money for his time. You're free not to visit or promote his page, but please don't steal his intellectual property.

Re:What you're doing is unethical

[LordPhantom]

I wrote this hyped up nonsense in order to place ads on it and make a lot of money for my 10 min of effort. You're free not to visit or promote my page, but please don't steal my intellectual property.

There, I fixed that for you. :)

Re:What you're doing is unethical

[Volante3192]

I'm not sure this can really be considered 'intellectual' though...

Re:What you're doing is unethical

[Anonymous Coward]

Heh - looks like the real author has 'mod' points. Overrated, indeed :)

NeXT

[Anonymous Coward]

NeXT Did return.

It is now called OS X

and has really nice UI.

I like the idea

[Toreo asesino]

I like to think that one day I could "log on" to any "computer", and see all my documents, email, and all the other data I use every day just appear on my "desktop" - or any other directory I put them in. The ultimate remote-desktop if you will. It could all be done from a full-screen web-browser, with the local OS just interfacing with a set of complex online APIs and clever client-side scripting to give the impression of real-time updates.

In fact, I think 90% of users would love to see this too, but I see some rather large problems with doing this...not least that in doing so, one would effectively be putting all eggs into one basket (Google's in this case), which is rarely a good idea - promises of "not being evil" notwithstanding.
Personally, I'll never seriously use a system that is based on this paradigm, as suddenly, my very personal information is now owned by a company and not by me. I don't think i'm the only one too.

There's other reasons I think this wouldn't really work too (such as offline connectivity), but I won't go there. Still, that's just me....everyone's different.

Screw GoogleOS

[Anonymous Coward]

I think I'll just stick with Gentoo. It's the most baller OS ever!

out of thin air, but one things for sure

[everphilski]

It is all speculation, but one thing is for sure - google thrives off of personal information, so it will be a webOS or at least something that is heavily integrated to their databases online.

Weird sitemeter report.

[GKThursday]

About a year ago, I had a strange report on sitemeter, it said operating system unknown, and browser google 0.9. The weirdest was the ip was Microsoft's Redmond offices. here's a picture of it I thought it was weird then, and I still think it is weird. ~Thursday

Re:Weird sitemeter report.

[bugg_tb]

Not to put a dampner on things but isn't this just a msn webbot trawling your blogspace? I may be completely incorrect and why it would identify itself as google I don't know but it does seem to be slightly more plausible

Re:Weird sitemeter report.

[0racle]

MSN Spider

Look under the Google 0.9 (an old google spider or a bot misreporting itself) msnbot 0.9

You're going to need to try harder, MS isn't testing a nonexistent OS.

Re:Weird sitemeter report.

[stormeru]

This is obviously the MSN Web Crawler wrongly identified by your sitemeter.

Re:Weird sitemeter report.

[Rob T Firefly]

Sitemeter reports aren't that dependable, anyone can send it anything if they want. Thanks to boredom and Firefox's User Agent Switcher extension, I regularly clog up my friends' sitemeters with apparent hits from a Sega Master System, a brain in a jar, a GE washing machine, or the Mysterious Stone Tablets of Atlantis.

these guys get paid to write this stuff?

[not already in use]

These WebOS's that keep popping up are nothing more than proof-of-concept web pages that do nothing except prove that you can emulate the look and feel of a desktop OS using web technologies. They are in no way practical and anyone who thinks that a real company would pursue this option as a real OS solution rode the short bus as a child.

Looking at things from Google's perspective, they should want to support whatever could help topple MS. They have a spot of Apple's board, so they are helping Apple from a strategic standpoint. I think it is also important to note that Google is a supporter of open source and Linux, and it would not make sense for them to release their own distro when they could help to support an existing and privatly funded distro that has already made huge inroads (relatively speaking of course, in comparison to other linux desktops) in the desktop market, that being Ubuntu. I personally would like to see google throw their weight behind Ubuntu, as it would really get linux out there as a viable alternative to windows.

The idea that google is gonna release their own OS? Never gonna happen.

Re:these guys get paid to write this stuff?

[westlake]

Looking at things from Google's perspective, they should want to support whatever could help topple MS. They have a spot of Apple's board, so they are helping Apple from a strategic standpoint

Apple has a secure niche market and leverages the dominance of the Windows OS through iTunes to its own advantage. Microsoft holds a very strong hand everywhere else.

Google is a brand name only in search and advertising. It has no presence in mass market retail. No experience in supporting the home market, small business, at the level an OS must have to be a viable alternative to Windows.

Why do you suppoae every OEM Linux distro tanks when it hits the shelves at Walmart?

Umm... right

[Anonymous Coward]

Google does a lot of good stuff (maps, search, and I recently checked out their finance page... very slick), but an OS? That's nuts. People aren't going to switch to Linux; Slashdot has been pushing all the anti-MS FUD they can for years and years already, and been extremely successful in their anti-MS propaganda, but it the claims of "Linux on the Desktop" have never been farther from reality than they are now.

And even the OEM machines with Linux pre-installed were a huge failure, since people purchased them and installed pirated copies of Windows.

Every municipal Linux/OSS deployment has been a high-profile failure (Munich anyone?). In real life, "Free" can be way too expensive.

Re:Umm... right

[nickos]

I didn't know that Munich's Linux/OSS deployment has been a "high-profile failure". Links please.

10% of Office

[jaweekes]

Google's doc and spreadsheet are just for the "average Joe". I do not need all the features of Excel to make a spreadsheet of my CD collection, or to calculate my bank balance. This is the market Google is aiming for; people who are confused by Excel and all it's options (this includes OpenOffice). Like the saying goes; most people only use 10% of Office. Well, Google has given you only that 10% and it's free!

Re:10% of Office

[ChunkyLoverYYZ]

An OS and an App (Office) are to VASTLY different animals.

Re:10% of Office

[LWATCDR]

Actually it has some very nice features for small companies in general. For instance we use Google spreadsheet for planning our website. The person in our office uses it to set the tasks and the order they need to be done shares the document with our outside web developer. Works well for that task.
I don't think of it as a replacement for OpenOffice or MSOffice but as a new application.
It might be possible to do the same thing with MSOffice and Sharepoint but this is easer.

OS: You keep using that word. I do not...

[Achoi77]

You keep using that word...

I do not think it means what you think it means. :-)

That said, why would google be interested in their own OS? To increase their marketshare? That doesn't make any sense.

What the Google OS is...

[nigham]

Google is a minimalist company. The Google OS will probably be a basic OS with the ability to check mail, maintain basic documents, your calendar, photos, and your news. Oh wait... thats already here! Am I the only one who realizes how much we're in the browser these days? When I'm writing in Writely I actually try to Alt+Tab out to my browser... before realizing I'm in my browser already.

Re:What the Google OS is...

[Falladir]

Yeah, but not everyone is advanced as that. I have friends who close their browsers when they finish looking at a page.

Re:What the Google OS is...

[Falladir]

Too bad Docs and Spreadsheets doesn't work with Opera. Opera is head and shoulders above the rest of the browser market in everything except marketshare. >_

Name?

[smackt4rd]

Ok, time to think of a clever name for it. GOOSe? Hmmm, that sounds a little too close to goatse.

Re:Name?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually I have a better suggestion. I think they're going to call it the Google Operating (-tional?) Desktop or GoOD in short =)

Slasbots don't understand Google either

[Anonymous Coward]

Google is an ad agency. Period.

Re:Slasbots don't understand Google either

[MindStalker]

And thats what is great, they are an ad agency willing to create brand new technologies just to push their ads. Hell they encourage their employers to create random technologies with 20% of their paid time that may or may not do Google any good.

Re:Slasbots don't understand Google either

[Anonymous Coward]

bitter much?

Re:Slasbots don't understand Google either

[TrilateralRegression]

And that's a bad thing how?

Re:Slasbots don't understand Google either

[Anonymous Coward]

Where did I say it was a bad thing?

Re:Slasbots don't understand Google either

[MikeFM]

Wouldn't it be nice if all employers did that. That policy of Google's is my number one reason for wishing they'd hire me. Finally time and resources to work on pet projects and if they don't suck then millions of people could end up using my project. That'd be awesome.

Google OS - fast and light, on a Bootable CD

[Anonymous Coward]

Google should distribute an Open Source, lightweight, google optimized Linux version that runs fast and great on everything from a 386 on up - Bootable CD image.

Just like those AOL disks that were everywhere, boot a PC with the Google OS, connect to the internet, and google is the home page. Shutdown the PC, remove the CD and your back to whatever was on the system to start with, or install the OS on the Hard Drive if you like it better than windows.

Got advanced hardware? The Google OS could auto-detect your rig's subsystems and download updated drivers for video/audio/printers - etc...

Full office ability, word processing, web browsing, email, chat - all on the CD default installed and ready to go.
(Plus firewall and built in Antivirus scanning and removal ability by default)

Making the OS free for all is a start, later Google can sell software tools, games, etc all GOS compatible.

Scoble Sounds Off

[InnovativeCX]

Apparently Robert Scoble picked up on this story...you can check out his article here.

But then again, it's not nearly as funny as the comment he left on the ReadWrite blog:

Google OS for laptops or desktops? You are smoking good crack.

I think that's just about all that needs to be said here.

Cheers,
- Scott

Recent Experiences

[Arwing]

I recently installed ubuntu on my laptop and I was really surprised how easy it was. I didn't have to download any driver and/or patches like I would usually do for the XP, the OS is speedy and the interface is clean. Now with googleOS, it would be easy for them to make something even smaller and easier to use. All they need to do is to integrate the OS with all the google services (g-mail, g-doc, picasa, etc.) and walla, you have a fully functional google OS. I find myself relying more and more on online resources instead of the traditional desktop softwares, the only thing I don't see how they can work online is gaming, which right now is pretty much Windows exclusive.

Why another OS?

[djg1977]

Google already have a filesystem, a calendar app, a spreadsheet app and a word processor. They're already in the process of moving features *away* from the desktop and onto the web - why on earth would they need to develop a desktop OS?

My bet is we will see some kind of integration of Google products and desktop apps, like a "save your Word document directly to Google Docs" or the like - thus making any desktop OS less relevant.
Or offer offline versions of their apps: http://startupsquad.com/2006/11/17/writely-in-offl ine-mode/

AOL

[EzInKy]

If anyone had a shot at knocking Microsoft its perch it was AOL right after they purchased Netscape. They had the distribution channels and a user base willing to install and reboot into just about anything they were told.

I Hope So

[Nom du Keyboard]

I hope Google gives me a viable, affordable, OS choice sooner rather than later. Especially sooner than Vista. Given the outrageous Vista EULA terms being enforced one-way by a monopoly bully, I'd like an alternative with a big enough company behind it to ensure stability and developer support.

Microsoft seems to believe that we're forced to swallow whatever terms they offer, and in large part they've been right up to this point. I'd like that to change, and see this as the best alternative out there for many of us.

And much as I like follow-ups to my posts, don't bother telling me to change to Linux. It least not without specifying distributions and locations for computers ranging from early Pentium-II's through current systems. If Linux had been a compelling choice (I run Photoshop, among other applications and still struggle with GIMP on the occasions where I have to use it - I develop under Visual Studio 6/SQL Server for a living), I would have already switched.

Re:6 months? MOD Parent Up

[Nom du Keyboard]

The parent may, or may not, be funny/satire, but it's definitely not Flamebait-1.

Ted Stevens was right!

[DLG]

GoogleOS is going to be made of tubes.

Essentially this will be a big improvement over the Microsoft Vista which is made of cups and string. Very tiny ones. The tubes will be able to move much bigger things. It isn't like trucks though. Tubes...

Remember I said it first.

---

Is it possible that what Google already has is a good guideline to where they are going? I mean clearly they have tried to keep things more or less device and os agnostic. They rely on browsers with standardized javascript (ECMAScript) being crossplatform. GoogleEarth is now on Mac and Linux.

I can't see them investing too heavily in replacing the actual operating system. What I can see them doing is leveraging the existing techniques they are using to become more and more ubiquitous so that a user no longer knows where the application is, but is able to run it from everywhere.

Bringing this into the Enterprise Market, maybe requires some sort of proxy appliance and a security model, but by leveraging their own massive storage and processing, they could enable big corporations to have better VPN, with a promise of DR and Business continuity. This can extend into the world of IP Telephony as well. The only question is performance and cost.

Any GoogleOS as perceived by most people comes down to a Thin Client. But the number of diverse apps that are developed for enterprises are so difficult to replace, and if you need to emulate windows to support them, then you may as well be running windows. I expect that the goal is to find ways to make the argument, look how easy it will be to take this ONE thing and move it to GoogleEnterprise, and look, if you already are doing that then adding this is easy. And look you can do THIS and no one else can if you add THIS.

So on and so forth. Which is why Microsoft has worked so hard to make all its apps intergrated, so that it becomes painful to replace any single component.

Anyway we can speculate all we want. If you KNOW what google's next step is then I suggest you start working on it yourself. Maybe they will buy you.

Wireless Linux

[armer]

It won't be linux based until the kernal has some sort of generic wireless NIC built in. They will want to make the OS easier to use the any flavour of Windows, because gram and gramps has to be able to use it and not need support...

Oh shit I read the article...

[Sfing_ter]

I know this is breaking the rules but I read the article... FTA:
>They could also make a networked file system the default, instead of the complex UNIX file hierarchy of >Linux - which is another reason why Linux struggles in the mainstream desktop market.

To which I must cry BULLSHIT. Most Windows users have no clue what their filesystem hierarchy consists of, much less how to navigate it. Most people think the desktop IS their computer, with the desktop background being their "ScreenSaver", and Internet Explorer is their ISP. Linux struggles in the mainstream desktop market because many retailers are provided disincentives to selling it on computers. Demand though has been growing and we are seeing the linux installed computers being sold by the big name oems so soon the the chain stores will be doing [soon as in this decade].

As for the rest of his hypothesis, (or is it prosthesis???), I found it intriguing, and place my vote on Gubuntu, and they better do it before Yubuntu is released...

Re:Oh shit I read the article...

[Anonymous Coward]

Every linux system I ever saw returned when I worked as a technician at Fry's came back either a) with Windows XP installed by the user or b) because it wasn't Windows. Every one. Without exception.

Thinking that getting it sold at retailers is any kind of accomplishment is foolish. People see the low price tag on "a computer" and think it synonymous with "a Microsoft Windows computer". When it turns out not to be, they either install Windows or return the damn thing. I'll guarantee you less than .00001% of retail sold linux machines still have linux on them. Especially since the distro was some truly terrible Korean made piece of shit distro I'd never seen and wouldn't touch myself.

Retail has done a horrible disservice to linux by distributing bottom barrel distros on shitty hardware, personifying linux as cheap, low quality, and useless to the average user. Cheap isn't bad, but low quality and useless simply lead people to say "You get what you pay for with that linuks stuff!" and you know what? They're right based on their experiences.

Don't expect retail to grow the linux market. It's going to all come from the workplace and from word of mouth.

Kernel developers

[zoftie]

They are hiring kernel developers far and wide, i think google os is coming. If not sooner then later. So far there has been numerous postings with them. I had interview with them apparently they are looking for user interface people too. Go figure.

Re:Kernel developers

[DragonWriter]

I think its more likely that Google will just team up with an existing (preumably, some version of Linux) open-source OS distribution in a cross-promotion deal and by dedicating Google staff time to submitting code (and chrome) for it (and to work particularly on getting key applications working well on it): it provides the same insurance against Microsoft leveraging their OS/Browser position against Google that a "GoogleOS" would, and is what Google has essentially done in the browser space with their relationship with Mozilla (and RealNetworks).

Google has also been partnering

[Sycraft-fu]

We bought a new Dell laptop at work and it come preinstalled with the Google toolbar in IE. That, of course, makes Google your default search provider. When you upgrade to IE 7 it's initial page asks if you want to change it to MS live search or leave it with your current provider (the default). After that it leaves you alone and uses Google.

That's one of the ways Google is going to make sure their search engine stays preferred. But to suggest that they'd write a whole OS because of it is stupid. Google could certainly decide to go in to the OS market, but they aren't going to do it because they want their search engine to be the default. As you said, an OS is a massive undertaking not just code wise but support wise. It's not like Google could just release an OS with Google as the default search engine and everything else would take care of itself.

Broadband at dialup prices...

[MsGeek]

I dunno about other parts of the US but here in SoCal both Verizon and AT&T are offering some sort of $15 DSL package. Sure, it's not leet and speedy but it's better than dialup. And considering that dialup costs $10 to $20 and up, it's worth it.

The only problem is distance to the Central Office. Not everyone is within range of their Central Office. And cable modem, unlike DSL, is not priced reasonably. Hopefully someone will lick the problem of DSL and central office proximity. If someone manages that, cable modem is toast. DSL might not be faster than cable, but it's more reliable, more secure out of the box, and most importantly CHEAPER. I get DSLExtreme DSL (remarketer of Verizon with more clueful support) for the low-end Verizon price. They do DHCP instead of PPPoE and it is rock-solid.

I remember when you couldn't touch DSL for less than $50/month. That wasn't too long ago.

Re:Broadband at dialup prices...

[TranscendentalAnarch]

Cable and DSL cost about the same kbps/dollar wise in San Diego.

At higher speeds, cable is actually a much better deal.

dunno

[Anonymous Coward]

Stupid when the bulk of the web was static HTML being accessed by people on dialup, but now there is AJAX and flash type stuff and a lot of broadband penetration. Maybe it can fly now, who knows?

I am guessing-if they even try such a thing, pure speculation- more on a front page/portal type near-OS, and them going into the ISP biz with ads toting the note. I don't think they like the blatant threat from the telcos to choke them off or shake them down for even more money with that non-net neutralty tiered pricing scheme, so I think they will try to "route around" the problem. Their "data centers in a box" are also potentially ISPs in a box that can be thrown up and operating in hours. All telcos and ISPs do is run a few server apps and do some routing and load balancing, etc, that's it. So..what is google's expertise on the hardware and software side again? Oh ya, set up huge servers running some server apps and route the hell out of them efficiently. Probably better than anyone else really.

They could do it with the combo of wireless and the dark fiber they own. Throw in some sort of telephony product, call it superskype,..and they got a winner.

Dunno, but

[Jediman1138]

Please let it be called GOOS.

Meebo

[dodongo]

The first thing I thought of when I saw Meebo in action was "coolness."

The second thing I thought was "Holy crap, an emulated windowing environment within a web browser."

Presumably the backend to run IM clients was straightforward enough; there are several open implementations. The reason, I think, they took the time to set this up is to show that you can actually run a GUI within a browser window and have it be convincingly responsive. They've gotta be hoping Google and some other corporations are attracted to this decentralized, client-naive way of computing.

In the right hands, this stands to be a boon for computing in general, as the OS becomes largely just another abstraction layer between the browser and the hardware. It would also be a boon for Linux as a viable desktop platform, because all you'd have to do is boot up into a web browser in kiosk mode to have functional (and cheap!) workstations, which are essentially OS-agnostic. Brilliant.

Nothing to see here

[Yfrwlf]

"There's no such thing as the GoogleOS in reality - but despite that, it is one of the most talked about Web products. People can't stop discussing it - and even imagining screenshots for it! Seems like everyone expects Google to get into direct competition with Microsoft, by releasing an operating system. However Google refuses such claims and even makes fun of this kind of buzz."

Dear Slashdot: Thank you for helping perpetuate rumors and theories. Fun to theorize, sure, but no substance here, move along pplz.

Oh phuleeze!

[Anonymous Coward]

What is a cool thing that came out of Google from WITHIN Google in recent months since Google Maps. Even GMaps is largely because of their purchase of KeyHole. That online word processor thingy is b/c they bought Writely. Google videos couldn't make headway, so they bought YouTube.

With billions of dollars market cap with share price at 400+ dollars and all the smart people in the world what has Google turned up recently on their own? Don't cite these cheap knockout, me-too implementations like Google Talk (hi, skype) and GWallet (paypal). These never get out of beta, wither for a while and silently die.

Looks like lot of smarties made their money and moved onto other startups.

So given that, my guess is they will just partner with Kubuntu and release a distro with Google wallpaper and a google screen saver that displays their stock chart and call it GoogleOS.

yeah, call me cynical. :-)

Google won't

[ratboy666]

The "OS" is simply a resource manager. It is a commodity.

And I won't tell you to "switch to Linux". I will, however, give some support to the idea that Linux is closer to the "community supported commodity OS":

I have a RAID 5 disk server. It is based on an old IBM 300 (Pentium II/266) system, with 128MB of memory (originally came with 64MB, and I put another strip in -- wasn't needed, but I had the strip in a drawer). It supplies SMB, NFS, and IMAP storage services (to four other computers). It runs headless (no keyboard/no mouse).

What is interesting is that, for this system, the OS *is* the application. The OS provides access to the resources (RAID-5 organized disk storage). No application is needed, or desired. And the "OS of choice" for this purpose is Linux or BSD (there isn't a "Windows OS" that supports this application, and it really can't run Windows XP anyway). FYI: the OS used is Redhat 9.

Windows isn't in the running (and, even if there WERE a Google OS, it wouldn't be either) because it provides a PLATFORM and I just needed an OS. Windows doesn't support NFS, or NIS (at least not out of the box, AFAIK). I guess I *could* use NT (3.51, 4?) with Hummingbird NFS server. And something for remote administration (VNC?). It hurts even thinking about it...

Google uses a commodity OS for their own needs. Google also uses various platforms (mostly Web centric) for application delivery. An "OS" isn't really what Google would deliver -- they would deliver a platform to support the "Google application" (whatever that is).

Ratboy

GoogleOS

[Russ Steffen]

I always figured that GoogleOS is what we'd be explaining to our children as the reason we're living underground in caves, hiding from the robotic Google Search Engines that scour the earth looking for humans to "index". Oh, and it's also trying to send Ahhhnold back in time to eliminate "the one called Sara Connor".

Or maybe I've watched The Terminator a few too many times.

Adsense

[AugustZephyr]

All I ask is please, please, please do not offer a "free" OS powered by ad-sense revenue that displays on one edge of my screen.

Re:Adsense

[maxwell demon]

If it's a Firefox-based WebOS, then you can just install Adblock.

GoogleOS, Kinda like Spaghetti O's ....

[BigGar']

but tastier and better for you.

Standards for web disks and password management

[bussdriver]

When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
A web OS is old thinking in a new world.

Web based applications are independent of platform in a way java never was able to reach. The OS doesn't matter, the browser as long as it works properly also does not matter.

Decentralization is fundamental to the web.

A "web OS" would be nothing like an OS. Strong Standards allow many groups to interact, just as they do now with the browsers--- the next steps will be web services standardizing how they interact with each other. (too bad AJAX has the same restrictions frames do or that fad would have done more than just change the GUI)

gmail is nice, but i can't store documents made from other online services without a lot of work... (besides its not really a disk) Google has been making integration of 3rd party apps easier so they are leading the trend.

I vote for negotiate with Ubuntu.

[jpellino]

Wow. Hadn't thought of that. Man, would that be attractive. I'm smiling just imagining Ubuntu's ease and polish with 12 months of Google think and implement time applied to it. If they could do for a desktop what they did for mapping...

how long will it take to migrate to this

[baydat]

looking back at Birmingham and Munich's hurdles, will they be trying this next...

Uh... right!

[rising_hope]

We believe that everything will become much clearer in the following 6 months. Microsoft will put pressure on Google with its Vista OS, which will receive relatively high adoption just like any other new Windows release (although probably not as high as historically Microsoft has enjoyed!). As Vista's adoption increases, so will the adoption of its default search engine Live Search. From Microsoft's perspective, this will have a positive effect on all Live and MSN sites. What end users are looking for is ease-of-use and satisfactory experiences - which in a lot of cases starts from the Vista OS. Proof positive the authors of this article haven't got a clue. Regardless of the GoogleOS speculation, assuming Vista will have a relatively high adoption rate is simply crazy. Unless you have a newer graphics card, be prepared for a dumbed down, slow not-really any more interesting than XP experience, with program compatibility issues and perhaps the steepest learning curve of any Windows OS to date. I suspect the enthusiast geek/gamer community will be the first adopters, with most individuals waiting for their current hardware to start feeling slow before moving up to a new machine (and new OS along with it.) Consider that over 50% of all computers sold are laptops, and the majority of those (especially smaller systems) don't have real, capable graphics cards. That will make Vista very unattractive for anyone who purchased a laptop somewhat recently (within the last 2 years), but not so recently to have snagged a newer Core2 system (Intel GMA945 is the first Intel integrated chip capable of running Aero Glass.) Businesses will largely steer clear from Vista until support for XP is dead. Others who can't comply to the new WGA authentication schema will either complain enough that Microsoft will be forced to change it at some point, or may look to alternative operating system options. Make no mistake - this is the biggest change in operating systems since 98-XP for users, and 3.1-NT for businesses. By and large, Windows has improved to the point that most people just don't care about upgrading (XP is reasonably stable, even if it has more holes than swiss cheese), and for many others, it means more of a financial investment than they are willing to make for the time being. Expect adoption rates to be slow, regardless of the hype.

I'm an admin and I'd love a thin client

[Colin Smith]

Honestly, administering your own systems becomes a real pain in the arse. For all the standard stuff, I'd frankly rather not bother doing it for myself.

If Google produce a system with all the basics:
word processor, spreadsheet, email, all the office stuff, add on a small business accounts and customer relationship management you have a compelling product for small businesses and individuals. Charge $50 per year per seat.

Anyway, it wouldn't be aimed at us, it'd be aimed the people we serve. Damn... That puts me out of business... Wanders off to think about the future.

The Wii simply can't output at 720p

[@madeus]

No I'm not missing the point, I suspect you also don't really understand the technology.

The ability to output at only 480p is all but certainly a hardware limitation in the case of the Wii, a limitation that was deemed acceptable for reasons of cost no doubt. While I don't know what video encoder chip the Wii uses, I'd easily bet the cost of a Wii that it's not able to do 720p or Nintendo would obviously have supported it in software in the first place (it would be insane for them not to - at least for things like the "dashboard" and Opera).

Just because a console has a video card with a few megabytes of VRAM and is capable of some fancy shaders and also supports Component or VGA interfaces does not mean a mere 'software upgrade' can enable the console to be able to output at higher resolutions - if a system is only able to output at 480p it's almost certainly a hardware limitation (and I would guess down to the video encoder). The original X-Box, Dreamcast and GameCube support VGA output too, and all had enough VRAM to support resolutions like 720p (so in theory you could render at that sort of resolution internally), but the hardware was simply unable to output higher resolutions like 720p (though with the the X-Box you could at least get to 1024x768).

The only reason the 360 was recently able to be patched to support 1080p (in addition to HD resolutions 1080i and 720p) was because the hardware already supported the higher resolution (it's just that no one was really shipping 1080p displays and the 360 - like the PS3 - is going to struggle to render any native content at that sort of resolution, so it's was mostly pointless and only a worthwhile exercise in so far as it gave the PS3 one less unique selling point to tout).

The PS2 also supported high resolution outputs, though I only know of it being used in Gran Turismo.

Re:The Wii simply can't output at 720p

[MeNeXT]

The card in the Wii is more than capable of doing over 1600x1200. What the Wii can't do is render 3D textures at 30fps or more at 720p. Nintendo is marketing the Wii as a game system and not a computer. If they marketed the system as 720p then people would expect the games to be 720p.

Re:The Wii simply can't output at 720p

[@madeus]

The card in the Wii is more than capable of doing over 1600x1200.

That's pretty funny. For a start it only has 3 MB of VRAM, and not all of that is usable as a framebuffer (a large portion is reserved by the Wii for texture memory). Even if you didn't bother with a z-buffer (i.e. it's purely a 2D image) you still are not left with enough VRAM for anything like that sort of resolution. Maths for the win!

For the Wii to do even anything like 1600x1200 not only would need to be able to handle a larger framebuffer than it currently can and the RAMDAC would have to be fast enough to support the desired output resolution. God himself could not make a Wii output at 720p.[1]

[1] Well maybe, if it was a 2D image at 256 colours and at 10 frames per second.

Re:The Wii simply can't output at 720p

[MeNeXT]

# Nintendo Wii's 'HollyWood' GPU is clocked at 243MHZ, the internal memory of it includes 3mb of embedded graphics memory and 24megabytes of high speed main memory.
# 64megabytes of GDDR3 (MEM2) as the external main memory. Just like the internal memory, it can be accessed from the CPU and GPU with a maximum bandwidth of 4gbytes/sec and can also store programs in the MEM2.

You don't need speed to type...email, letter, or surf the web....

Re:The Wii simply can't output at 720p

[@madeus]

Oh dear, you didn't get anything I just said at all do you? :-(

The reality distortion bubble is strong in this one...

Re:The Wii simply can't output at 720p

[MeNeXT]

Why would you need 3D for email, or Web? Why would I even need 5 FPS? The area on the screen that is changing as I type this is very small at best 50x50 pixels. I'm not talking about games. You are. Forget the games. Read my posts.

1bit res is 1.9MB, 8bit is 15MB that's at 1600x1200 2D. At 1080i you need 21MB for 16bit color. At 1024x768 at 32 bits is about 24MB.

As per the specs presented thus far, it is more than adequate to display a beautiful desktop on a HDTV.

Here's a weird thought...

[Zaphod2016]

...sooner or later, a Googlebot is going to read this thread. And if Eric Schmidt gets his way, sooner or later Google is going to develop artificial intelligence.

Just imagine the possibilities.

In one scenerio, the Google-Skynet sends robots back in time to assasinate the mothers of smart-ass /.'ers who dared to mock the glory of Google.

In another scenerio, a primitive AI script somewhere in the vaults of the Googleplex is reviewing your suggestions...thin clients...BSD...and thinking....

Except

[The MAZZTer]

Games and video doesn't work well over VNC. :) Audio doesn't work too well unless you have a very good connection. I also haven't found any existing VNC clients that support audio... which seems kinda odd.

Why does it have to fit the established norm?

[carlmenezes]

What is the function of your desktop in your OS from a user point of view? Just a convenient place to access things. Methinks the browser IS the desktop for a web based OS. Your tabs are your windows. Websites offer you different types of functionality. I think what Google is trying to do is simply eliminate the need to have additional applications installed on your machine - you can get everything done on the web - now, just about every single OS ships with a browser, so booting the computer and allowing it to connect to the net is not the problem any more.

They're currently addressing the needs of the majority with their web based office apps. They started with the most basic - a unified browsing experience - search and email. If they could do something like Photoshop for the Web, that would be huge and would get another chunk of users.

Sure, they could release a Google Live CD that you pop into your computer etc etc, but why bother? That isn't the need anymore. The need of the day is portable information. If they can accomplish that in six months - something like a web based version of what it feels like to work with OS X, then they would have created a web OS.

webtv

[deevnil]

Except in HD on a big ol plasma screen...

Rob Pike's efforts

[Anonymous Coward]

Has anything come out of Rob Pike's efforts at Google? He is fomerly of Bell Labs and was involved with Plan 9

Games bundled with GoogleOS

[swillard4d]

I heard the GoogleOS is going to ship with Duke Nuke'em Forever and Starcraft: Ghost.

why bother?

[oohshiny]

Shipping and supporting an OS is a lot of work and requires a lot of people; why should Google bother?

Ubuntu is a nearly ideal OS for them, and anything they want to accomplish with a desktop OS, they can by contributing to, and supporting, Ubuntu.

It's Late, I'm Ranting

[tempest69]

Since I'm having a half-baked what-if moment I'll paint the following scenario... Google modifies a painfully stripped down OS, let go BSD based for fun.. The guts of the system are based on a new security model, where the applications have no capability to write to anything other than the directories it controls, and to files it already owns. The only way to make a new file outside of controlled directories would be via the "open window" Which could be requested by an application, but not controled by it.

The real guts would be that all applications would talk to a pretty paired down OS. No linked libraries ever, no .dll, .o or .so files ever touch the OS from outside. No abilities to change system wide settings from an application. Applications that needed to access the parts of the system would need to be vetted by google and digitally signed.. for instance a yahoo chat client, it wouldnt be able to connect to the internet without being signed (the signing would infer different trusts depending on the signature.).

While the system seems like a pain for coders to put applications on, It's what I'd like to have on my parents PC, an OS that can get things done, without getting a whole bunch of junkware installed, And even if they install 17 different photo-editing suites, then remove the last three, it wouldn't cause the priner to flake out about a sd card reader not found.

Right now the system is plain up goofy, regardless of OS. Mac apps tend to play better, but mostly because you dont have hardware companies writing junk applications for Mac's They just omit it, really it's a blessing. Of course I'm bitter since my Belkin software just jumped all over my Netgear Hardware Settings last night.. Catharsis on slashdot, because someone else should feel my bitter frustration.

Storm

I can see it now.

[Kadin2048]

Netcraft confirms it ... BSD is dying, mortally wounded by a hamster with a laser pointer ...

forever is a long time

[wilec]

"Computers aren't going to keep improving geometrically forever, so people will stop replacing their computers every couple of years, and that means less bundled copies of windows being sold."

Forever is a long time, the view you see seems to me an extremely shortsighted one. The recently arrived at relative plateau of mhz speeds may seem to indicate this, however the next generation of fab plants are not online yet. As new fab plants come online you will see decreases in component size and thus increases in speed. As the hardware and software architecture matures for, then later exceeds, the 64bit address space you will see a dramatic increase in performance as well.

But even more important in the future will be the move to parallel processing (multi-core) and virtualization (vmware/xen)technology. Efficant parallel processing has been the holy grail for computing for years and is more of what makes a super computer a super computer than raw speed of the individual components. Recent advances in multi-core CPU's will bring this type of power to the desktop. Expect massively multi-cored CPU's in the near future. The main bottleneck will then be the softwares ability to make use of this power. The consumer level desktop OS's of today even the multiprocessor variants are just not up to the scaling process control and interprocess communication tasks that will be needed to effectively harness the power of massively paralleled hardware.

So there will be the need for continued development of the desktop OS, to the point of reinvention. In the short run the new power will allow the use of virtual machines that will deliver neat things to the user. However in the longer run I think virtualization technologies will be seen as keys in the solution of many problems like scaling issues, process management and interprocess communication.

All in all the evolution of desktop computing is far from over, in fact we are only in its infancy. I expect to see more advances ,with increases in the exponential growth rate, in computing power in the next ten years than in the sum of all to this date. The only real stumbling blocks I see are political and legal, the limitation of internetwork bandwidth and the throttling of implementation of new technologies by those trying to hold on to or grow their piece of the pie, ie: Microsoft, IBM, ATT/Bell, and RIAA type folks. New computers are going to be capable of things we can barely imagine now. Some of these things such as better user interfaces like real functional voice I/O interface, intelligent interactive agents or whole body AVATAR generation and control/feedback devices, better visual interfaces like CA generated virtual 3d worlds on Super High Definition displays, comm media and entertainment convergence and home automation are going to be so handy that I am sure I will want one and I think you probably will to, and so will Joe sixpak and maybe your grandmaw. Microsoft can and will probably will be a major player in this, hopefully a company of better ethics and vision or of lesser influence than today since they, like many others, seem intent on holding back progress wherever it threatens their ever increasing stake in the game.

What is needed are political/legal solutions that allows for as open as possible "free" market forces but establishes a legal framework tilted towards the most efficant advancement of technology. This in the long run will by its nature be the most beneficial solution for the stakeholders (all of us) and the well diversified share holders (more of us than you might think). Patent, copyright, and digital rights management are at this time be biggest impediments to technological progress. Materials and implementation sciences are constantly being restrained by legal devices setup to encourage progress. This is not to say they all need to dumped, that is A: not possible B: not an efficant solution anyway. However a lot of laws need to be readdressed and refined, enforced, created, extended or simply eliminated. I s