Chrome OS and Android "Will Likely Converge" In the Future

xchg writes "When Google first announced that the company would be pursuing development of two distinct operating systems, many questioned Google's motivation. 'Google executives, including CEO Eric Schmidt, have downplayed the conflict ever since, asking for time to let the projects evolve. And a few days after Chrome OS was revealed, Android chief Andy Rubin said device makers "need different technology for different products," explaining that Android has a lot of unique code that makes it suitable for use in a phone and Chrome has unique benefits of its own. But Brin, speaking informally to reporters after the company's Chrome OS presentation on Thursday, said "Android and Chrome will likely converge over time," citing among other things the common Linux and Webkit code base present in both projects.'"

Comments

Ever worked in R&D?

[Kupfernigk]

You've just described it. If you try and manage all the R&D and ensure everything fits together and is optimised - like the "pragmatometer" in C S Lewis's dystopic NICE - you kill creativity and slow everything down. Theoretical physics - there's a lot of duplication in different universities. Are you going to set up a supercommittee to eliminate it? Congratulations, you just killed physics.

If Google shareholders take windfall profits now and try to mature the company early, they will be killing exactly what makes it innovative. It is not in the long term interests of Google to do that. Remember long term? Before we had day traders and similar idiots trying to turn everything into a casino, we had companies like IBM that were hugely innovative and came up with things like relational databases. Real innovation requires long term commitment and a great deal of luck. You make your own luck by funding people like Cobb, or Mandelbrot, and wait for them to lay golden eggs. Can't do that if the shareholders are whining that they want all their (unearned) profits out, now.

Re:Ever worked in R&D?

[Jacques Chester]

I have a feeling I will be the designated baddy for today's thread :D

I am actually a big believer in research spending, and I think that any company with above-normal profitability is mad not to do a lot of it. But there's a difference between "research" and "entering every and all market segments you can hoping that one of them will be profitable".

Basically Microsoft and Google are almost totally reliant on single lines of business (Office + Windows vs AdSense, respectively) for their profits.

Because they're not paying *any* of that money to shareholders, there's no incentive to economise. More to the point, they suck up innovators and lock them up in a structure where they're beholden to internal process and not able just to say "fuck it, this idea is awesome, let's sell it!"

Google are already turning into Microsoft on this front too. Small companies regularly out-innovate (I hate that word too) them. So Google just buys them out.

I think that refusing to pay *any* dividend is just control-freakery. And it's bad for the economy because it encourages speculators to buy on the basis of short-term share price fluctuations. It used to be that you looked at the fundamentals of a company, then bought and held onto the shares in order to get dividends. Now you buy and flip it because paying dividends is old fashioned.

Re:Ever worked in R&D?

[Dharh]

One small wrinkle. Most everything most everything google puts out ends up being free (and yes I consider text ads 100x more free than that bullshit we call tv ads). So Google ends up saying "fuck it, this idea is awesome, lets _give_ it away!" MS can't even compare to google at this point.

Re:Ever worked in R&D?

[Seanasy]

Because they're not paying *any* of that money to shareholders, there's no incentive to economise.

Paying dividends has nothing to do with being economical, whatever you mean by that.

MSFT has been paying dividends for a while now. It's exactly what companies do when they can't grow much more. You'll be hard pressed to find a company that has opportunities for growth that pays a dividend. The shareholders wouldn't even want it because the potential returns from reinvesting in the company and increasing stock value are larger than the dividends. MSFT has plateaued, it's a mature company with massive market share. There's not a lot it can do with it's money so it pays (and shareholders demand) dividends. Look at their stock price up to about 2000, that's when they stopped growing. A couple years later they had one last split and started paying dividends. Growth has been flat.

GOOG still has avenues for growth. Buying companies is perfectly normal. Paying dividends wouldn't make sense.

Whether paying dividends is better than growing stock values is debatable but I think it has little to do with short term price fluctuations. Investors that are into GOOG for the long haul wouldn't want dividends now if they want to maximize the return on their investment. They'd wait until GOOG hit a price plateau then sell or demand dividends.

Converge as code base or as products?

[MtHuurne]

The article seems to assume Android and Chrome OS will converge into a single product. That is one possible way for converging. But another possibility is that they would be built from the same code base, but still have a different UI for different size devices.

Re:First post

[clang_jangle]

God damn it, Chrome is NOT an OS and repeating that over and over won't make it so. It's a sophisticated browser. Linux is the underlying OS (maybe you've heard of it) and Chrome is a Web-centric user-level application.

Wrong. Chrome is an OS which (currently) runs on the Linux kernel. A kernel is not an OS -- pleae see Debian, which runs on Linux, FreeBSD, or even Hurd kernels.

Re:First post

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks, I was about to say that. Now I am redundant.
Interesting how /. audience is losing its punch. Pathetic losers don't even know the difference from an OS and a Kernel... They probably came from MS world, and think being "linux" is cool... LINUX IS NOT AN OS, IT IS A KERNEL. AN OS IS something like Debian, Chrome, and Ubuntu, which is probably the one you as a newbie is using... AND NOW GET OUT OF MY LAWN!

Re:Google is suffering from success

[Jacques Chester]

In truth, Google is not a technology company. Really. HP, Sun, Oracle, Microsoft, Dell etc are technology companies: people pay them for products which are the fruits of research and development.

Google is not a technology company. Google is an advertising company with a sideline in email hosting. That's where their money comes from.

If you look at the technologies you listed, with the exception of Java, almost none of them was made profitable by the company that invented them. I don't know why companies who can afford really serious, advanced "blue sky" R&D so frequently fail to commercialise it, but it's really common.

Re:Google is suffering from success

[farble1670]

are you suggesting that google share holders are not pleased? huh.

Both only cellphone level functionality.

[guidryp]

Both seem very limited and aimed at cellphones essentially. So it does seem they have huge overlap.

I was hoping Chrome OS would be more functional than Android (sort of lightweight Linux replacement) but it seems the opposite. It is just a browser. Yawn.

I really can't see the point of maintaining two cellphone "OS type" products.

Re:Google is suffering from success

[iluvcapra]

Okey... 'nuff said. If there is anything that could on the long run kill proprietary, monoplies, vendor lockin, etc, etc. then it is Chromium.

How on Earth would having all your applications running remote on Google Gears kill your "lockin"? If anything it makes it worse.

Re:I have an idea

[koiransuklaa]

A new desktop 'paradigm'? Care to explain how that relates to X11 (and more to the point, how X11 prevents this new paradigm)?

Re:First post

[V!NCENT]

At first, everybody is predicting:" OMG Linux will own the desktop! We need KDE 4.x and Gnome 3.x and it is all going to even let your mom operate her computer much easyer than the shitty last incarnation from Microhell!" Etc, etc.

Then when Linux actually gains marketshare, people start to complain. "Oh noes! Not all Linux users are kernel devs anymore! OMGz0rs! When did people forget to man or infor this or that and why do people get so dumb that they can't even convert high level code to assembly and turn it to 1's and 0's with their bare hand, using an assembler! OmG it get's populair!"

Well duh, elitist prick. When you drive your car to a garage because you can't replace your engine yourself, the guy who does that for you won't be complaining about that fact that you cannot do that yourself. "Hey why don't you read the manual on how to replace your backseat yourself! How can people be so stupid that they cannot even replace their own chairs?!"

Re:Google is suffering from success

[Stuntmonkey]

In truth, Google is not a technology company. Really. HP, Sun, Oracle, Microsoft, Dell etc are technology companies: people pay them for products which are the fruits of research and development.

Semantics. It's true that Google doesn't make most of its money selling technology as a product. However it's also true that technology has been the most critical factor in their success. Why was Google search better than Altavista, or Gmail better than Hotmail, or Adwords more scalable than Overture, or Google Maps better than Mapquest? It boils down to better technology. So why not consider them a technology company?

Re:First post

[bsDaemon]

First, physically replacing stuff in your care requires special tools and a shop in a lot of cases -- stuff that most people don't have just chilling in their garage. Every linux system comes with the tools to code the Linux system. Secondly, the guy in the car shop is getting paid a fair bit of money to do the work, whereas the people coming into IRC or on forums demanding help are never going to pay for that assistance, often ask in the wrong place, and are frequently rude and demanding about the free help they're getting.

Hell, if you poke around Ubuntu forums, half the time one person has a problem and then there are naught but 50 responses all going "me too!" and no actual solution in site. It's like AOL. There have always been new people coming into the community, but when it gets to the point where the newbs outnumber the established people, it tips the balance in a really weird way. Maybe it's "for the better," but I liked things just fine the way they used to be.