Google Chrome OS?

[Akshay Jain]

HI

I was expecting some discussion on the announcement by google regarding a
new Google Operating System to compete with Windows and OS X. I guess
everyone is studying these days ;)

Let me know what you guys think about it? I read up this interesting
article on why Google should not develop such an OS. Here it is:
http://fakesteve.blogspot.com/2009/07/lets-all-take-deep-breath-and-get-some.html
Quite funny but ya, I would agree with FakeSteve in this matter!

Akshay

[Aditya Krishnan]

I've been reading a lot about this too. But, I doubt it can compete with OSX and Windows, it seems to be a bare-bones OS meant for netbooks and maybe other portable Web devices. Maybe local versions of Gmail and Gdocs, customised for offline access and synching as necessary/possible with the cloud. This, however, is what 80% of the computer-using population want. Not everyone needs Visual Studio and Photoshop and Office etc. 

[Akshay Jain]

But ultimately the development of the graphics capabilities in both
Windows 7 and OS X shows that the masses want "glossy" and "neat
interfaces" also. Basically, everyone wants eyecandy and features that
they will never use. They like smooth scrolling windows, themes and things
like that.

Talking of barebones, why does Google want to develop its own OS? There
are plenty of barebones Linux flavors available ranging from 40mb in size
to 4gb+ . So, point is that Google is playing on its popularity.I dont see
what the Google OS will be able to do which the others wont be able to
do.ANd frankly, I dont like the monopoly that google is creating in the
search engine business. I am a big fan of Google but there are limits.
When you visit any random XYZ website and it has adsense/analytics on it,
Google can probably track everything about me (things ranging from who I
am, what I like (most searched topics by me) , what i have searched for
all my life (google search history) , who are my friends (orkut) etc etc
etc.,

When Google created chrome, I liked it, but somehow I never used it apart
from trying it for a day or two and it has no extraordinary features that
the others were not able to do. The "speed dial" feature has been copied
from Opera, the "private incognito" mode is a firefox extension etc. So,
what is actually happening is that they put together the best of all
browsers and made a new one called "CHROME", which again gave Google more
powers to monitor and track user information and browsing habits.

Now comes the OS, which will give even more powers to them. Does it end
ever? More and more info of the users which they can monitor.

Just my 2cents.

Akshay

[Aditya Krishnan]

That's what made Chrome my primary browser - simplicity. FF was good, IE8 was imho better than Opera... but after using Chrome for a few days I found that I did not miss ANY of the features of those browsers... I could happily browse without FF extensions and IE accelerators. This is, I believe, what makes Google products so popular. Without all the flash and glamour of the other majors, they managed to make a browser that does 100% of the things 90% of people want. It still has issues, no question. But after Chrome I personally find FF and especially Opera very irritating. And not to forget, Chrome is still much much faster than the others. On my Core Duo laptop running Vista, Chrome takes 3 seconds on average from button-click to Gmail inbox-load. Nothing even comes close.

Next, Windows went the glitzy route with Vista, Aero theme and all. And we all know how that turned out.. hopefully Win7 will be a reprieve. Apple is not a valid comparison, fanbase loyalty is a major factor there.

So, if the Chrome OS will indeed continue to offer the same things other Google products offer - i.e. clean, simple interface, speed and like Gmail, deceptively powerful under the surface... I believe it will become a success. A relative working in San Jose tells me that almost all his colleagues carry netbooks with 3G wireless dongles/cards and prefer to use Google Docs instead of Office/Openoffice. 

I will admit that the monolithic thing is an issue, but you can't criticise a search engine for being TOO good, can you? Likewise, Google's products and services are just too effective and convenient for people NOT to use... A case could be made for plotting computer-hatred in terms of MS Windows releases, but the same cannot be said for Google's products. Some industry forecasts I've seen predict that Google Android smartphone sales will soar by 900% in the upcoming two quarters.. and I personally would have bought a G1 long ago if the cellular Internet here in India was better. As it is, I'm considering the HTC Hero as my next phone upgrade.

And with the millions of people Googling all the time, why the heck would they be looking at you and me specifically..