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Chrome OS Designed To Start Microsoft Death Spiral
Al writes "Technology Review has a feature article that explores the business strategy underlying Google's decision to develop its Linux-based operating system, Chrome OS. Writer G. Pascal Zachary argues that Eric Schmidt has identified a sea-change in the software business, as signaled by Microsoft's recent problems and by the advancement of cloud computing. Zachary notes that Larry Page and Sergey Brin have pushed to develop a slick, open-source alternative to Windows for around six years (with the rationale that improving access to the Web would ultimately benefit Google), but that Schmidt has always refused. While developing Chrome OS is a significant gamble for Google, Zachary believe it will exploit Microsoft's historical weakness in terms of networking and internet functionality, forcing its rival to better serve Google's core business goals, whilst initiating its own steady, slow-motion decline."
Microsoft like SEGA will survive after it's core product ends. Microsoft makes a lot of tools, these will still be used and profitable once Windows is gone (the thought of now more windows makes me giddy though)
I will gladly bet that Microsoft will still be a highly profitable company in twenty years. The fallacy of this write as with many other prognosticators is that the game is zero-sum. This is false. IT is growing and will continue to grow as long as there is an economy to support.
Microsoft likely will need to reposition itself in the market as Google grows. However, Microsoft will be a big player for at least another generation and likely many more.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
Unless Chrome is going to take on Windows 3.0, I think that's stretching a wee bit...
46. The Hobo smiles, his eyes glaze over, and he burps. "Beware the man who has lived longer than the Wasteland."
Not that I'm a Apple advocate, but Apple has had a far superior OS to Windows for the last 8 years, and they've barely dented the PC market. If OS X can't change the Windows mindset, Chrome sure as hell can't.
Chrome is just a shiny object in Sergei's eye. It won't have an impact outside the geek arena.
John
Truth is Windows will be around for a long long time, even if not on the home business, there is just too many corporations relying on windows for it to sink. I do believe the user base at home will decline heavily (Free Product vs Highly priced crap), but the corporate business wont trust a Google OS for many years to come. Big companies (Banks specially, I work at one) are very slow adopters.
Have you not learned yet? You've been screaming doom and destruction at MS for years now and it still hasn't even made so much of a dent. I'm glad that Google is entering the OS market - having another competitor, and one with a history of excellence that google has is a good thing. However, this is not going to start the death spiral of any thing, just like the chrome browser isn't killing any of the major players off.
These sensationalist headlines do not belong here.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
It is geated for appliances, not general-purpose computers.
Now I will grant that most of what people do today would be easily fulfilled by an appliance. And we would all be far more secure with appliances that could not be subverted by botnets, viruses, trojans, etc. An email/web appliance would satisfy 99% of home users and probably could be slightly extended with web applications to work for 50-60% of business users as well.
So who is building the hot new appliance? Nobody. All previous email appliances have died, mostly from a lack of functionality. Today people see a very false progression from a full-function appliance to a "real ocmputer" as being a short leap, so why not take it? The reality is the appliance with limited (or zero) local storage and no ability to install software (or trojans, viruses, botnets, etc.) would be much, much better for everyone using the Internet.
Could you make an appliance immune to phishing? Probably.
OK, so Chrome OS would be great for an appliance... except nobody is even contemplating building an appliance today. With the thousands (millions?) of Windows-based x86 applications out there for our general-purpose computers, who is going to displace Microsoft? An OS with a rich API, multimedia capabilities and access to the full capabilities of a computer? Or an OS where the API is a browser and nothing else?
Sorry, but Chrome OS might be OK for a netbook. Maybe. It has no place on a desktop computer.
Yeah, that's why nobody uses gmail.
Facebook is the new AOL
It's a good article, and well-worth reading. But it bears only a marginal resemblence to the teaser headline CmdrTaco has slapped on it...
The difference between theory and practice is that, in theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
Apples and oranges. E-mail is an application that only makes sense if there's a network connection. Editing my home movies, not so much.
Does Microsoft make an IE that can run on Linux without requiring compatibility layers? How this is modded interesting I'm not sure, because that would be the same thing as forcing the 360 and Wii to play Blu-Ray movies and PS3 games.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
No, it's why not everyone uses g-mail (and similar), and why many companies ban its use.
What the GP tried to tell you, but I think you missed, is that there isn't an either/or situation, but room for many players with different types of solutions.
I can't count the number of companies that have made the same claims only to be crushed by the Microsoft Juggernaut by simply having better PR and marketing. In fact the Bing marketing blitz over the last month has been very visible and well put together. Google search is remarkable but some of its functionality is not at all intuitive for the lay-searcher. Microsoft is trying to take advantage of that and if there's one thing Microsoft IS good at it's marketing.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
Um..so you believe that Windows dominance derives from the primary goal of "[doing] something positive for the customer"? Perhaps in a convoluted sense that's the case, but the primary goal of Windows 1.x was to prevent the Macintosh from luring away customers (and it wasn't under Windows 2.x until the promised "overlapping windows" was available), Windows 3.x was to prevent IBM OS/2 from surplanting MS-DOS, Windows 9x was to migrate the existing MS-DOS lock-in on the PC to a much more complex windowing system lock-in which companies like Digital Research couldn't readily copy, and Windows XP was chosen as the consumer line to cut down on handling duplicate code in two Windows code bases.
I'm certain that there were various people who worked on Windows who cared about the consumer, but along the way the driving force behind Windows has almost entire been about maintaining or growing a consistent revenue stream. Not pissing off the customers too much has been second place, at best.
Having said that, I don't think it's at all a good thing if Chrome OS was being created to destroy Microsoft. But, I think it's a fantasy to believe that people with an agenda can't succeed in their agenda even if it seems to violate a supposed core tenent of the free market. Perhaps if there were an infinite number of OS companies and they could create software that's 100% compatable with each other it'd hold, but Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux are in many ways their own market precisely because of incompatability; to that end, the many distros of Linux are probably the closest thing to the "infinite number of OS companies" with the *BSDs/Unixes being the next closest.
Eurohacker European paranoia, gun rights, and h
for their cloud and cell phone products
and Google's products are routinely left unpolished in the usability arena unlike Apple and MS. i gave up trying to scan my photos into Picasa and went back to one of Microsoft's free apps or one of the ones in MS Office. the google desktop has been banned in a lot of companies for its ability to kill MS Exchange and Blackberry Enterprise Server. Android is seen only on brand x cell phones where no one cares what the model is. iphone and pre seem to get the cool branding.
If Chrome OS is like any other Google product then Apple and MS have nothing to worry about.
If Google passes the line between privacy and convenience, we will read some horror stories about it and it can actually lead to some very interesting developments like FSF getting into the future drama as it will be based on Linux.
We may end up reading things like "World's first spyware OS" right here, on Slashdot. We may see FSF or Linus openly protest it.
Google thinks everyone buys their "not evil" kind of slogans and design software based on it. Someone should remind them that those times are over. Also, being open source won`t change a thing. If it gathers your location and posts it to Google servers, it won`t matter if it is open source or not. Even if they hire (!) rms to code it, it won`t matter.
I think you're right. People have touted the 'Net as the OS for years. The problem is you will have a hard time wrestling power from the user. Yes, novices will use whatever the masses are using. But geeks will want the computing power local and as users become more savvy they're not likely to be as turned on by the Net as the OS.
No, but it sure makes the summary less linkable.
Do you really expect anyone to believe that the cost of the computer is the cost of your computing?
Intelligent people who also factor in other costs often end up choosing Macs as the TOTAL low-cost alternative.
I bought a Mac for my wife, it is by far the cheapest solution because I spend zero time fixing it for her.
Guess the expression is a bit too hard. Google in this case has the same view as the Linux community: make operating systems better (and if Windows can't adopt, they will see a slow and steady decline - well, maybe a bit faster than now).
Google's core market are web applications, and they figured they could get a lot of support by doing the right thing and improve on an existing platform.
Currently - out of the perspective of commercial entities - Linux has 3 main problems: minor market penetration, lacks a coherent graphics API/environment/spec./SDK and it is hard to deploy packages that are fully or partly closed source.
If Google improves these aspects and packages it in an easy to use system (for everybody - which means the system has defaults that decide a standard environment for the user without the need to use a command line for basic tasks while keeping power underneath to please devs.), than they will gain a lot of independence for their core market.
They figured that developing a system from scratch is not that simple (cheap), and that an active developer base is very valuable, so it's a good way way to build on the Linux platform.
Anyway, as long as Google plays the right cards this has some interesting potential to catalyse the disruptive technology that Linux/OSS represents.
I have to get some popcorn now.
ps: The key is still the OEM market, and I'm very curious how the battles on that field will be fought.
That's actually a pretty good example. We wouldn't necessarily want to 1) have our home videos exposed to the web and 2) have to deal with the latency of a connection, or other technological limitations. As I do some audio creation on my computer (mostly bad music for fun, i admit), I can see no reason why a cloud style OS would improve my experience.
How many corporations use gmail as their email system?
Personally, I use Gmail, but I still want my files to be on my computers and on my own backups.
Especially since Gmail lost about 4 years of my mail archives and couldn't be bothered to restore them from backup (if they ever have backups)
If con is the opposite of pro, is Congress the opposite of progress?
*GASP* Trashing Linux? I'm surprised you haven't been modded down as a troll!
Seriously though, you raise good points about linux. I'm a UNIX admin by trade and I'm fairly familiar with all flavours of unix/linux but I still use 75% windows at my house for those reasons. The thing with Linux is, even if you do know what you are doing, the fact of the matter is that there is often still a long process to go through to get something to work.
Sadly, most linux developers take the attitude of 'Fine we don't need you' instead of really hearing and trying to understand the problem.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Funny, I routinely read and compose emails on subway trains (no Internet connection), Greyhound buses (no Internet connection), Amtrak (no Internet connection), and airplanes (no Internet connection). The only reason webmail is popular is that people do not like taking the time to configure an email program to connect to their POP3/IMAP server.
Palm trees and 8
people will want their own files & data & OS to really be their own including the OS
No, people want something that works for as cheaply as they can get it. The concept of ownership isn't even noticed by most people (in the software world) until the thing that was believed to be "owned" is taken away, and Microsoft isn't stupid enough to take something away from enough people to cause a ruckus.
Most people also don't know or care about software updates. If XP stops automatically downloading them in 2013 or whenever the most recent EOL extension is, people using XP will not notice. Or if they do notice, they'll think, "Yay! No more rebooting!"
You have a really high opinion of people in general. I'm guessing that you don't work in IT.
They do know "OMG, This is taking forever", and "$MARKETING_BUZZWORD"
Anything can be found funny, from a certain point of view.
Google observes that Windows is too complicated, slow and bloated. But another big bloated monolithic solution such as the Linux kernel doesn't seem an answer. Why don't they go with a microkernel architecture based on something such as Minix 3? We've known for years the potential advantages of microkernels: smaller, simpler, more robust.
You've just got yourself tied up here already. NT is probably the most popular microkernel architecture in the world. What makes it "hybrid" is pretty minimal... it's a lean mean high-performance microkernel. A lot of what still made it hybrid has gone away in NT 6.
I don't think Chrome OS has a shot in hell in outperforming Windows 7 or Mac OS X at any media application aside from the Chrome Browser itself. Google simply lacks the organization and expertise to create something like DirectX or CoreVideo, or any of the advanced mature media frameworks available in the big name desktops. If they really had that capability, it would have started peaking out in Android, which lacks all sorts of hardware acceleration features that Win CE and iPhone OS offered. It's very web-ish.
Let's be clear: we're talking about an in-development environment that will essentially be a web browser running on a framebuffer on a linux kernel with a lean non-gnu stack. It's not a general purpose OS. It's going to grab a small chunk of the super-casual market such as netbooks, probably defeat any desktop linux in existence by an order of magnitude, then fall flat on its face in front of anyone who needs to get serious work done or produce attractive documents or edit media, from housewives to students to professionals.
What we're looking at isn't a juggernaut but a curiosity. I anticipate it's going to kick ass for people who only use their web browser, though. It'll really simplify things for them and offer them an extremely fast boot-to-web experience. I think it will succeed in what it's trying to accomplish, but it's just far too small in scope.
And even the potential for formal verification to prove that it really is bug free, something that Windows and Linux are far too large to ever accomplish.
What sort of verification would you be talking about? We're talking about a desktop environment built out of WebKit, so I think their potential security will be lower than what Windows offers... I think they're banking on the fact that they likely won't offer a native execution environment outside of Native Client. Of course, this is assuming Native Client isn't just a modern ActiveX waiting to be exploited upon deployment.
The main disadvantage I've heard is a perception that a microkernel architecture by necessity imposes a performance penalty. The ability to survive buggy driver code has a flip side in the supposed overhead required to jump in and out of user space whenever the microkernel calls on these drivers.
There are modern pure microkernels out there which perform blazingly fast... Green Hills INTEGRITY is an example. They've gotten around a lot of these little problems in a brilliant way. The open source community is trapped within debates from the early 80's, it's really big world outside of UNIX. Microkernels beat Monoliths on every front aside from brute simplicity. Monoliths can be "elegant," but linux is anything but. Compared to the gnu/linux ecosystem, Windows is extremely well organized and clearly architected.
Google is not looking to innovate in the operating system market, clearly. They're simply doing what so many desktop linux distributions failed at when trying to make a casual OS. They're using Linux because it'll save them time writing difficult boot and driver code and ultimately save them money. They're not writing their own kernel because they're not really going to compete with Windows. I don't think Google really has what it takes to create a serious new kernel, anyway-- or even clean up Minix enough that it performs competitively.
My final
Remember that most of the people that hang here is not a good representation of the "common people". Common people don't know much about computers, internet or security. And they don't care. They use what's fun and easy, even if it's bug-ridden, insecure, unhealthy and radioactive. They are not computer geeks, they're just people.
And people, not geeks like you and me, is what drives the market. If Chrome OS is easier and funnier to use than Windows, many people will use it. Even if has a security hole so big that you coud fit a truck into it, even if it makes their pictures being naked and drunk available to anyone in the Internet. Because they, and most of their friends, won't care. They just want to play with the damn thing.
My weblog in spanish
Linux is superior to Windows in many ways. OSX is also superior in many ways.
It's nothing to do with the OS. There are two factors that drive change. Price, and features (and by features, I actually mean the software you can use on it. The OS is worthless on its own to an end user.)
OSX (or the hardware that runs it) is more expensive, so that keeps many users, and big business out.
Linux may be free, but there's no truly viable MS Office alternative, nothing that matches Exchange, there's no professional level Photoshop, there's nothing to edit videos with, nor post processing, good luck doing complex audio work. Sure you can browse the web, and do many things, but not at the convenience/utility level that you can in Windows. If you work in an office environment, you'd have to be a zealot to use Open Office, and you'd struggle to get your corporate email and meeting system working. If you are a creative professional -- Linux is completely worthless. Sorry, but it is. I wish that were not the case, but there's no professional-level creative apps for Linux.
And that's is why there's been no year of Linux so far. End users don't care about the OS that much, they care about what they can install on it. Of all the programs available for Linux, few are of comparable quality to those available to Windows or OSX.
And this will be the case for Chrome OS too -- at least in the short term.
Windows has Office, Photoshop, web browsing and email, and a huge pile of big-name games from big-name vendors.
MacOS has Office, Photoshop, web browsing and email, Final Cut Studio, and a (very, very) few of the big-name games from the big-name vendors.
Linux (Ubuntu, Chrome, etc) has OpenOffice, web browsing and email.
Not intentionally trolling here, but the fact is that not everybody is a web or software developer. Every modern OS has a basic suite of internet access and media playback apps, but the fact is that people buy windows machines for a few reasons - it's What They Know, They Don't Know Any Better, and Their Game Or Application Doesn't Run On Anything Else* being the most common.
Bottom line, if all you need is a browser, a mail client, media software and a text editor... you can be OS Agnostic. You can choose whatever works best for you. Chrome could work for you as well as Mac OS X or Ubuntu or whatever.
If you're a gamer, a graphic artist, or do any sort of 3d modeling, Linux isn't on the table... and neither is the idea of running your application in a web browser.
From what I've read, I'd be able to do with Chrome what I can do with every other current OS on the market. And there's a LOT I won't be able to do with it.
So. What's the killer app? What compelling reason is there to use Chrome when everything out there already does web and email while giving me productivity ability that still doesn't exist on linux?
Disclaimer : I was seriously thinking on getting a netbook until I got my iPhone, at which point a netbook seemed pretty irrelevant. I was looking at Hackintoshing a Dell Mini 9, as the price is right and it would give me the applications I want to be able to use on the fly - stuff I can't do with the iPhone, but stuff I wouldn't be able to do with ChromeOS, either.
* File format tie-in is a big one here - I can't move to linux even if I wanted to thanks to my productivity hinging on (literally) hundreds of gigs of .psd and .max files. Switching to a 3d app that isn't Max or a pixel-pusher that isn't Photoshop would incur hundreds of hours of work cleaning up and retexturing models, environments and source documents for the new app, to say nothing of the learning curve.
Why is it than whenever there's one of these death to microsoft articles, no one brings up DirectX?
Are there any decent games for a Mac since Oregon trail? Are there any 3D games for Linux that don't look like Tron?
If like so many before them Google adopts a business the hinges on MS death spiral they will eventually learn that there is no money to be made in MS demise. There can be only one out come. They will fail to respond to real threats to their core business and come to realize that even with MS gone or diminished their own profits will not increase. I as a loyal Google customer want my needs to be served regardless of what happens to MS (which btw I do not care to use).
The point of Chrome is not for people to switch to Chrome. Nor is it to write killer apps unique for Chrome. The point of Chrome is to make Microsoft start writing web apps, and moving away from desktop. It's like luring the shark out of water to compete in your territory on the land. Google lives on the Internet, and Chrome OS is the Internet OS, that will hopefully move Microsoft to the Internet even more than they have (Office online, Windows Live etc). And more of Microsoft services online, the better it is for Google. Since Google are the king of Internet and in effect are making Microsoft compete with them outside of their core competence (desktop). And having to compete with Google online, takes away resources from desktop.
As the island of our knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.
Hm, I bought a Mac Pro when they first came out 3 years ago. I don't understand how yours came to age twice as fast as mine...
From my high-def camera?
Well, sure, I'd love to use my 768kbps upload to push all that up for online video editing so I can get my 1080p, sounds fucking fantastic!
You know, that comment will be damn funny to read in a few years time :-)
And you have a very low opinion of people in general. I'm guessing that people you consider stupid have much better lives than yours and you resent it.
The only reason webmail is popular is that people do not like taking the time to configure an email program to connect to their POP3/IMAP server.
Really? Funny. The reason *I* use webmail is because it's available any place where there's Internet access. That's also, as it happens, the same reason I use a service for storing bookmarks (del.icio.us), personal information/notes/etc (a private wiki), some small docs/spreadsheets (Google apps), and so forth.
Housing prices have not corrected themselves.
Look at California. Still listing those "$500,000" mobile units in Santa Barbara.
The issue can't be fixed until all those people who can't pay off their mortgages are physically OUT OF THOSE HOUSES.
Growing the economy can be done in three ways:
Finding/exploiting new physical resources
Increasing productivity
Moving liquid assets (people buying shit they can AFFORD)
Yes, "buying" shit with a credit card when you can't afford it outright is absolutely retarded, and I don't fucking consider that "buying".
Who cares?
Buy a mac.
NO SIG
It isn't available in any place where there's Internet access, it's available in any place where there is Internet access and a client machine that you can trust. How often do you find a machine that isn't yours with Internet access that you can trust not to be trojaned?
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Writer G. Pascal Zachary argues that Eric Schmidt has identified a sea-change in the software business, as signaled by Microsoft's recent problems and by the advancement of cloud computing.
Google didn't identified anything, they just have enough cash to fund long-term such project. And is not a head-on assault on Microsoft grip on the OS market, but rather a typical asymmetric warfare operation. Any dollar Google pours into Chrome OS, even if it doesn't defeat Microsoft, it makes them hemorrhage maybe another $500-1,000. If Google can fund Chrome OS long enough the loses of Microsoft will become harder and harder to justify in front of their board and ultimately in front of their shareholders.
It's very similar, strategically, with the asymmetric warfare strategy facing the American troops in Afghanistan.
Catalin Braescu
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