Guest DisposableHeroes Posted July 8, 2009 Share Posted July 8, 2009 It's been an exciting nine months since we launched the Google Chrome browser. Already, over 30 million people use it regularly. We designed Google Chrome for people who live on the web — searching for information, checking email, catching up on the news, shopping or just staying in touch with friends. However, the operating systems that browsers run on were designed in an era where there was no web. So today, we're announcing a new project that's a natural extension of Google Chrome — the Google Chrome Operating System. It's our attempt to re-think what operating systems should be. Google Chrome OS is an open source, lightweight operating system that will initially be targeted at netbooks. Later this year we will open-source its code, and netbooks running Google Chrome OS will be available for consumers in the second half of 2010. Because we're already talking to partners about the project, and we'll soon be working with the open source community, we wanted to share our vision now so everyone understands what we are trying to achieve. Speed, simplicity and security are the key aspects of Google Chrome OS. We're designing the OS to be fast and lightweight, to start up and get you onto the web in a few seconds. The user interface is minimal to stay out of your way, and most of the user experience takes place on the web. And as we did for the Google Chrome browser, we are going back to the basics and completely redesigning the underlying security architecture of the OS so that users don't have to deal with viruses, malware and security updates. It should just work. Google Chrome OS will run on both x86 as well as ARM chips and we are working with multiple OEMs to bring a number of netbooks to market next year. The software architecture is simple — Google Chrome running within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel. For application developers, the web is the platform. All web-based applications will automatically work and new applications can be written using your favorite web technologies. And of course, these apps will run not only on Google Chrome OS, but on any standards-based browser on Windows, Mac and Linux thereby giving developers the largest user base of any platform. Google Chrome OS is a new project, separate from Android. Android was designed from the beginning to work across a variety of devices from phones to set-top boxes to netbooks. Google Chrome OS is being created for people who spend most of their time on the web, and is being designed to power computers ranging from small netbooks to full-size desktop systems. While there are areas where Google Chrome OS and Android overlap, we believe choice will drive innovation for the benefit of everyone, including Google. We hear a lot from our users and their message is clear — computers need to get better. People want to get to their email instantly, without wasting time waiting for their computers to boot and browsers to start up. They want their computers to always run as fast as when they first bought them. They want their data to be accessible to them wherever they are and not have to worry about losing their computer or forgetting to back up files. Even more importantly, they don't want to spend hours configuring their computers to work with every new piece of hardware, or have to worry about constant software updates. And any time our users have a better computing experience, Google benefits as well by having happier users who are more likely to spend time on the Internet. We have a lot of work to do, and we're definitely going to need a lot of help from the open source community to accomplish this vision. We're excited for what's to come and we hope you are too. Stay tuned for more updates in the fall and have a great summer. http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/int...-chrome-os.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moo Posted July 8, 2009 Share Posted July 8, 2009 And people think Microsoft are sinister... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest DisposableHeroes Posted July 8, 2009 Share Posted July 8, 2009 And people think Microsoft are sinister... Nothing sinister about open source. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moo Posted July 8, 2009 Share Posted July 8, 2009 Nothing sinister about open source. Okay... longer explanation... What is the Chrome OS? It's a buggered around Linux clone that's essentially limited to running a browser and nothing else. Why, we have to ask, would Google do this? After all, if you want a free, fast booting, low hardware overhead OS, why not just use Ubuntu; you can can even limit yourself to just running whichever browser you chose to run and achieve exactly the same result as you would with Chrome, with the added benefit of being able to install stuff and hold your own data locally should you want to. So what's sinister about that? Think revenue streams. Google, essentially, sells advertising, and there's a limit to how far they can take that. They are probably not far off that limit, and may well have even passed it. So, what next for them? Well, my guess would be trying to convert users of Google's freebie non-search related services (you know, the stuff that's in perpetual "we deny all responsibility" beta) into direct paying customers. So how does Chrome fit in to this? First off, consider who it's aimed at. It's clearly not aimed at the tech literate, as it essentially offers the user less functionality than an iPhone. I find it hard to imagine how you'd sell a machine with Chrome OS installed to anyone who actually understood what it was and was aware of the alternatives. "So it's like Windows \ Linux \ Mac OS, except I can't install programs on it? No thank you". This product is aimed squarely at punters who only want a machine "with the internet on it". And why wouldn't they... after all, everything's free on the internet, isn't it, and I'm sure Chrome will very helpfully get those users signed up for all those nice 'free' Google services. Of course, Google would never consider charging for those services in the future, would they? Put simply, this is a system designed to pull in low tech literacy punters for free, tie them into using freebie browser based apps with license agreements that effectively say "we can do what we want with this app whenever we want, so use at your own risk", get them hooked, then start charging. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
d2thdr Posted July 9, 2009 Share Posted July 9, 2009 Put simply, this is a system designed to pull in low tech literacy punters for free, tie them into using freebie browser based apps with license agreements that effectively say "we can do what we want with this app whenever we want, so use at your own risk", get them hooked, then start charging. This sounds like the type of people who believe that renting is paying someone else's mortgage. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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