
Why Google Chrome OS has already won - sant0sk1
http://scobleizer.com/2009/11/20/why-google-chrome-os-has-already-won/
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gamble
> Or, what about my son who is in high school. By the time Chrome OS comes
> along in big numbers he’ll be in college. Why take a $1,000 computer to
> class? Couldn’t he do everything he needs to do on a low-cost computer
> that’s lightweight, replaceable, uses low power, and just uses the web?
> Absolutely!

I see very few netbooks on campus. You might expect them to be overrepresented
given that students aren't known for having a lot of money, but I suspect that
most undergrads are reluctant to have what's usually their only computer be
something that isn't fully-featured.

The computer industry has a long history of claiming that certain users don't
'need' much power, so they should be willing to settle for minimal systems. It
misses the point - people who don't need much computer are the least willing
to buy low-end systems, because they don't want their one computer to be a
dog. Netbooks are in a sense a luxury for richer consumers who are able to
afford more than one system.

Chrome OS strikes me as riding the far edge of the gadget nerd/web 2.0 bell
curve. You won't find an audience for this thing at Walmart.

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panic
This article conflates Chrome OS with the low-cost devices it will be running
on. In reality, these devices will be able to run full-blown Windows or Linux
as well; Chrome OS needs to prove that it can be _better_ than a full-blown OS
in some way (beyond just boot-up time, which is basically irrelevant).

~~~
megaduck
I think any conflation is quite intentional. For all practical purposes,
ChromeOS will be inseparable from the devices that run it, much like the
iPhone and the iPhone OS.

Google has been quite clear that ChromeOS will not be run on general-purpose
hardware. ChromeOS is designed for low-cost low-power ChromeOS devices, that
will be packaged more like an appliance than a traditional computer.

You might be able to force Windows or Linux onto one of these ChromeOS
devices, but you'll have to hack it.

~~~
Nwallins
NB: ChromeOS is a Linux

~~~
Kejistan
ChromeOS is a linux like Android is a linux. Which is to say: just barely.

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dejb
> But what if there were a new device that costs less than $100 that JUST does
> cookbooks and other things I need in the kitchen? I would buy one. A Chrome
> OS is all that’s needed for such a specialized device.

So someone would deliberately cripple chrome to prevent you being able to
access the net on it? What a genius idea! What about an Amazon kindle that can
only ever read one book? This is surely the author's vision of world with a
simple UI for everything. No longer will users have to twist their brains to
conceive of getting all sorts of information through the one device.

Somehow I don't see this as being in the spirit of what google has in mind.
I'm sure you could configure it to start of on a recipe site/content and
package it as a cookbook for those who are not so tech savy. But totally
crippling a general purpose device is a terrible waste of resources and is not
the way forward IMHO.

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SamAtt
If Microsoft wants developers to develop for Silverlight so bad why don't they
just make a Chrome OS plug-in? The thing is open source. Moonlight already
runs on Linux. Wouldn't take a rocket scientist.

That's even if Google wants Silverlight to not work. They clearly support
Flash and I suspect they want the Chrome OS to support the entire web
including Silverlight sites.

So now you have open apps working on Windows and Silverlight apps working on
Chrome while Robert Scoble just seems kind of stupid.

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hello_moto
The argument of putting Chrome OS on low-cost low-power devices seem to put
Chrome only for a short future doesn't it? As hardware continues to evolve, we
will have better hardware with cheaper cost, less electricity but more
powerful.

Scoble re-iterates "developer developer developer". I think it's quite hard to
have a scalable in-the-cloud web-app vs mobile phone app or one-off desktop-
machines thus making the Chrome OS to have higher barrier of entry.

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mark_l_watson
I think he nailed it: more of a competition for developer support.

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chaosprophet
Seriously, I absolutely don't get the point of 'fast' boot times. Win 7 boots
in 40 seconds and Chrome OS boots in 10 seconds. What are you going to achieve
in the 30 seconds that Chrome OS saves you??? Save the world???

~~~
ThinkWriteMute
Lets say I have a series of installs to do that require rebooting.

There are 10 boots total (New machine, lots of corporate software, probably
poorly made!).

400s v 100s.

Or 1m v 5m.

Now spread that over say, 400 computers (New corporate office, new equipment).

(40 * 10) * 400 = 160,000s, or 2666m, or 44hr.

Vs

(10 * 10) * 400 = 40,000s, or 666m, or 11hrs

In short: Perspective, dude.

~~~
skinnymuch
Hehe. Find me a corporate company that wants to put all their stuff on Google.
Google Enterprise is one thing. ChromeOS is another.

~~~
ThinkWriteMute
If you think Google wont make this incredibly enticing to companies, you're a
fool and probably would have scoffed at the idea of Adsense ten years ago.

~~~
skinnymuch
Yes I would have. Mainly because no company would have been able to make it
work back then. No one even thought of Adsense 10 years ago. You do realize
the whole reason Omid is a billionaire is because he was the one of the first
main marketers for the company and he was a new employee 10 years ago.

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lucifer
Yes, trust _your entire (cyber) life_ to Google Inc. They do no evil, haven't
you heard? Platforms like Chrome OS are the enablers of (very possible) future
police states.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
Just reading through the chromium OS documentation and they at least claim
that in future versions you'll be able to log in with an openid instead of a
Google ID and use non-Google web apps.

