Linux vs Linux
Lawrence D'Oliveiro
operating system built around its Chrome browser. This is Linux-based, like
the Android system it has successfully been offering for about the past
year.
Both are centred around the Internet. Android already runs on smartphones
and netbooks. The difference with ChromeOS is that it is totally based
around running apps via a Web browser, that is the apps reside on servers
elsewhere in the cloud. User data is only stored on the local machine for
caching purposes, nothing more.
There will be some people, accustomed to the Microsoft model of software
development, who will immediately start twitching at this: “two different
products ... must consolidate into one ... save costs”. Forgetting, of
course, that Google’s costs in developing its operating systems are only a
tiny fraction of those that Microsoft has to incur in developing new
versions of Windows.
Google builds on the existing, highly-malleable Linux kernel. It doesn’t
even have to write any device drivers. It just has to build the custom
middle layer that provides a common interface, user services, network
services, that kind of thing. Linux is already portable to a whole range of
hardware architectures (ARM, MIPS, x86 etc), so there’s very little extra
work to do in that regard.
The only likely competition that Microsoft can offer for these devices,
Windows Mobile, seems to be gradually decaying away (Desktop Windows is
locked to the x86 architecture, which makes it a non-starter). Not that it
was very functional to begin with—every vendor that adopted it had to spend
effort developing their own interface on top to make it more palatable. With
Google’s offerings, they can avoid this trouble.
So what’s Microsoft to do? If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. It can’t open-
source Windows. But what’s to stop it building on what’s already been open-
sourced?
Microsoft Linux, anybody?
victor
"It turns out Microsoft wrote a "killer app" for Chrome OS, they've been
working very very hard !" LOL
at 0:22:00
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JyFbF7QFlY
Microsoft probably had a chance with the introduction of Windows 7 to
put a similar instant on Web OS onto all the new laptops, splashtop
style but I don't think they see Google's big picture.