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As long as you can do *everything* in the browser, they'd be pleased. That in itself is what makes the "operating system experience" useful.
When you download a Linux distribution, you get a useful office suite, graphics editing packages, and so on. When you buy Windows, you get just that - the base OS. Its those users whom Google will benefit from.
After all, they've got the basic/most important things that people use: office software. And mail. And calendering. Need I go on?
(oh, and you'd get all these ads delivered nicely inside the browser. No pain of creating an OS for consumers...)
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There's no such thing as the GoogleOS in reality - but despite that, it is one of the most talked about Web products. People can't stop discussing it - and even imagining screenshots for it! Seems like everyone expects Google to get into direct competition with Microsoft, by releasing an operating system. However Google refuses such claims and even makes fun of this kind of buzz. Nevertheless we decided to analyze where Google may be heading with their product strategy - and from that determine what are the chances of a GoogleOS.
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I just wrote the possibilities. But in my opinion, yes, Vista will make pressure on Mountain View and Google will get more punchy with a BIOS-miniLinuxFirefoxOS hybrid model. This one seems most logical to me.
This is my prediction, if Web OS is moving faster than Desktop OS, and Firefox is accelerating their browser innovation with CSS3 and Adobe code donation.
It is no longer necessary to buy upgrades on Desktop OS, even on older computers. As long as you can install a latest version of browser, you can enjoy the latest version of any kind of Web App. No longer it is necessary to buy Win OS in order to use certain desktop app or play games.
Browser will be the determining the fate of Desktop OS and success of Web OS.
I can't tell you how critical the browser will become if we are going "Back To The Future".
"Back To The Future", we will be watching TV on a browser with Seagate harddrive embedded on Cloth-thin TV screen (Technology is available but price is not low enough for mass production). We will be video-conferencing on our watch instead of carrying our cell phone. The microchip will be embedded on our watch to replace credit card and prepaid card. Full screen ipod with browser installed will run Web App. You can carry a rollup keyboard as part of ipod case.
Laptop will slowly fade out due to battery fire and weight.
Can you see this happening?
Markus...Google, more secure? you must not read the news often.
I, for one could only hope that Google backs Ubuntu or any other "free" operating system, especially with the on-going Microsoft/Novell agreement and the implications of that bullshit deal.
The article in question is only pure (boring) speculation, nothing more.
Businesses will use the Adobe_Apollo_platform to isolate the installed winXP base from the web - thereby avoiding OS upgrade hassles. Apollo seems to be a .pdf sandbox holding the .swf vector engine which now also includes a first class html/ajax compliant browser.
The PDF container is the most trusted sandbox/container on the net, being used by the courts and big business.
By replacing the .pdf guts with the .swf vector engine and including the same html/css/ajax browser engine Safari uses yields an install package of around 10megs.
Since Apollo includes local storage options (disc or USB key or no local storage/cache for example) and preserves AJAX functionality ALL existing web based desktop efforts will migrate to Apollo becoming both OS and hardware independent.
Isolating winXP from the web with the Apollo interface layer will be irresistible to businesses because they can leave working systems intact and mitigate XP's worst vulnerabilities.
Just like AMD beat the pants off Intel by evolving to 64bit architecture by preserving legacy 486 code, Apollo preserves existing OS, application and file system compatibilities and greatly enhances security. More importantly,it offers businesses a super secure target interface layer/container with existing in house skill sets.
Google already searches, caches and uses both .pdf and .swf/.flv(Google_video) - so they know the platform well.
This all of course fits well with the "oh... we are just testing some betas" routine perfectly. That new monster Googleplex thing in the northeast should be just about up to speed as the wave of integration experiments starts up.
Compared to the other option of a different underlying .doc file system and the 'other' vector based interface layer that requires a beefy video card and includes wonderful DRM (digital writes mangling) etc... Who ya gonna call?
Slipstreaming the Apollo interface layer over all three operating systems is the game changing play here, because all the existing applications - HTML/ajax, SWF and PDF can be run on cell phones unaltered and that market is exponentially larger.
Some moron slaps together a page on his blog, that is 40% filled with advertisements, where he speculates in broken english how Google will take over the world.
Slow news day, indeed.
Here's a hint, fanboys. Google makes 100% of its money by selling ADVERTISING. All these freeware apps you guys are constantly orgasming about have NOTHING TO DO WITH HOW GOOGLE MAKES MONEY.
They exist because Google has one revenue stream which basically runs itself, and 8000 employees they don't know what to do with. So we get pieces of garbage like Google Chat, released with 500 news articles praising their innovation.
Google's stock price is determined mainly by the amount of hype the company itself can generate, straight out of the dot.com playbook of the last bubble.
One thing Google has proven, though, is the nobody on the planet has a memory longer than 5 years. Last dot.com collapse? I can't hear you! It never happened!
Oh, and btw, for you fanboys who say "it's nothing like the dot.com collapse, because google makes money and none of those tech companies back then made any money at all!"
WRONG. Sun and Cisco, for example, were making MORE MONEY than google currently does. That still didn't keep their stocks from collapsing 90% in value in a year after people woke up from their mania and realized they were wildly overpaying for their stock.
It'll happen to google too. I'd wager to guess half the programmers in america right now are too young to even remember the dot.com collapse. (that's because most programmers alive during that time are now managers, or have left the field entirely)
If you look at their investor base it's not idiot consumer's who will just dump and run. So while their stock may go down, it will never do what AOL or Yahoo's did.
You aren't Mark Jen....are you?
"I’d wager to guess half the programmers in america right now are too young to even remember the dot.com collapse. (that’s because most programmers alive during that time are now managers, or have left the field entirely)" - probably true
http://www.internetnews.com/xSP/article.php/348...
"All machines run on a stripped-down Linux kernel. The distribution is Red Hat"
If Google sells that GPL Red Hat Linux based distribution, they better have it online for free as a download as well to comply with the GPL license.
The only reason they don't have to give it away now is because they don't distribute it as software.
The gPad?
Of course Google has an operating system. Everybody knows that. It's called banks and banks of rack mounted data centers with server-side web apps.
Why on earth would Google want to go into direct competition with Microsoft for a desktop OS? They are already making money hand over fist carving out their own empire with their online web operating system.
Then again we can always wish. But that is all it is - wishful thinking. Bill Gate's vision was a computer on every desktop with a copy of Windows on it. Google's vision is a web OS for everyone that has an internet connection.
It's pure genius.
Why?
MSN has been the default in Windows since before there was a Google, hasn't it? People didn't flock to crown MSN as King of Search even BEFORE "Google" became a verb. Why would that change now?
When Jane Q. User wants to find something with her brand-new Vista computer, she's still going to fire up IE7 and go to Google.
To the extent that Microsoft has beefed up their own search utility and integrated it into Vista, it will mainly act as a Full Employment Device for industry pundits, who will always have a way to fill those column-inches with "Vista vs. Google" articles.
I think that in the emerging global scenario, if Google is to maintain their idea leadership, they need to adopt the peer-to-peer model built on the FREE Google OS mass distribution, to compliment their Data Centers.
That is the only way to ensure not only a seamless web, but also a redundant and terror-proof web.
http://ideaburger.blogspot.com/2006/11/making-g...
jay, from Bangalore
Why? All Google applications will run in a web browser and that is where the core of the functionality will be happening in the future (datacenters will be used mostly for storing information and for some different type of 'offline processing' - mostly search).
So Google promotes FireFox, which is its own web browser if you think about it long and hard enough. Obviously Google apps work in any browser, so it is all fine.
Yes, the data centres play a crucial part in all of this and of course all (or most) of that is running on Linux, which is great.
Currently, Google is the Google's OS. I can most of the common day to day things on Google now and I am happy with most of them. What else do I need?
I largely need more of the small business applications which will help me in mundane day-to-day activities, like bookeeping and other important but boring matters. Oh! Google's already working on that.
So there we are. Google is already one giant OS and that is largely the reason why it is so successful.
Cheers,
Jason
Director
www.flexewebs.com
Why Google might not win:
Microsoft's history is littered with companies that it has beaten. You can say they fought dirty or are a monopoly but look at Microsoft .net vs. Java. Both require a download. Most copies of windows don't have the latest copies of .net so bundling is less of an issue. There has been tremendous adoption. Microsoft performs very well when the chips are down. Never count them out.
Steve
If Google is going to sell an OS, it’ll be a server OS that’ll be a good hosting container for a ton of Web 2008-style services. Doing an OS for a laptop or a desktop? Please."
Spot on, Robert. Couldn't agree more!
First, the purpose for creating the operating system really wouldn't be for all the mundane stuff people ranted about above. If Google, with its current power to advertise to just about everybody, promoted any free OS or created their own, they would do two things. First, they would get huge amounts of consumer praise. Second, it would bring them one step closer to their mission statement by allowing more people to be able to afford a computer and search the web (note: I'm talking about people that don't know about linux...like lower class average families).
The above would be perfectly valid and really wouldn't surprise me any, but I don't think it's the direction Google has gone the past year.
Look at the companies Google has been buying out. Look at the services Google has shown interest in. YouTube, Orkut, Writely, Gmail: Both increasing their people-database and providing more places to advertise. Google has also launched a fairly successful transition to traditional media advertising. They clearly understand that advertising is where the money is at.
Add it up guys. Under pressure from stockholders, which is more likely...an OS...or an advertising agency?
You are right: the world's biggest datacentres put themselves together (the AdWords algorithm does it for them in a self-managed manner), Gmail grows on trees in California and Docs & Spredsheets was actually a leftover from Microsoft (Bill didn't like it cause it looked too boring for his well-trained 're-skin my software now!!!!' eye).
Get a grip on yourself please! Google is currently understaffed. Do you know that they actually have sales people who sell AdWords to big corporations, so I can be offered to buy Prince Nazeem on eBay for 2pence?
HAHAHAHAHA!
This is a real good rant.
Some good points on the .com boom and all that managerial stuff.
Google is a required service by the world and it will never be 'beaten' by Microsoft.
Thanks.
Jason
www.flexewebs.com