The Coffee Desk

Thoughts On Google’s Chrome OS

For those who may have been stranded on a deserted island for the past day or so, Google announced on its official blog the plans for Chrome OS, an operating system dedicated wholly to web browsing and (from the announcement) ONLY web browsing. Here are just a few thoughts on the plans for the new OS, and how it will compare with other operating systems like Windows 7 and Android, all shooting for a spot on the Netbook platform.

The Idea

The basic plan for the OS is to have a non-resource-intensive layer between a specialized Chrome browser (presumably the only GUI on the device) and the netbook hardware, optimally ARM-based.

The underlying OS is to be a customized Linux distribution compiled and rewritten for full optimization on netbook hardware. In addition to only linking to the minimum amount of modules required to run the OS and browser, this also includes some custom code as well.

The Developers

Google is calling on the Open Source community for help with this currently closed-source project. How well this blows over depends on how strong the open source community is currently, which is scary when viewing both the world’s economic state and dying projects like Open Office.org and MySQL.

Google’s internal developers are no stranger to operating system design (particularly Linux) and doing so on embedded platforms after their venture with Android. The only difference with Chrome OS is that it has an entirely different goal than that of Windows, Mac OS (X) or even Android itself.

Goodbye Local Machine

I’ve been ridiculed during IRC debates for years everytime I’ve said that the web as a platform will cause the local machine to lose priority in computing, and this new venture by Google combined with cloud computing and the rise of netbooks is a testament to what I’ve been saying.

So far, Google has made it clear that the only higher-level program running on this OS is to be the Chrome browser. No Java runtime a la Android, no easy method of porting standard Linux/C programs, and no local focus whatsoever save for the browser.

This, in my opinion, is a great move considering the increasing dependence computing in general has been taking on the Web. Myself, I’ve been somewhat porting standard command-line applications to web applications via my Informational Website in the hopes to further shift focus from local programs to web-based applications.

Google’s applications (recently taken out of Beta-status) are a continual testament to this as well, bring document processing, image editing and email interaction to a web frontend as well.

Limitations

This bold OS plan is not without a few limitations, however. Adobe Flash support for Linux is poorly supported at the moment, and getting Adobe to speed up the porting of Flash to both ARM and thus ARM Linux at the same time (as Apple has been trying to do) is not going to be a speedy process.

That said, while most programs either have a web-based equivalent or fall out of the scope of Chrome OS’s target market, there will be a few applications that still will have a need for running locally. With most games being Flash-based on the Web, this poses a problem as I can guarantee that the casual web user also views a computer as a gaming platform as well.

With Google owning YouTube, an Adobe partner and in my opinion Adobe’s #1 Flash supporter, this shouldn’t take too long if Google holds their feet to the fire about this issue.

Hardware

Google plans for Chrome OS to run on both ARM and x86 processors, with no ties to specific manufacturers as of this moment. This leaves hardware support up in the air as a crucial issue, unless Google explicitly builds Chrome OS to be tailored for each netbook it is to be distributed on.

And as with any netbook, 3G/global wireless Web access is a must for any phone carrier to provide, so how Google interacts with cellular providers like AT&T and Verizon for both device driver authoring and OS integration will be interesting to see.

Competition?

When the press buzzed about Google’s internal “Goobuntu” OS, there was speculation that Google would enter the OS market, which was quickly shot down by Google PR personnel.

Now that they are, it seems Google is entering two new fronts with Microsoft that they never dared to enter before: the operating system and netbook markets.

But, you have to realize something: Windows 7 and Chrome OS have two entirely different goals. Windows 7 aims to bring the Windows OS platform to the smaller netbooks, while Chrome OS is sensible enough to only bring netbooks what they need: a dedicated web browser running atop a minimal OS for hardware interaction.

And even better, unless Microsoft utilizes a key .NET feature to take on Chrome OS for the ARM netbook market, there is no way Microsoft can bring Windows and Internet Explorer to the ARM netbook scene. With ARM chips looking better and gaining support in this field, Google already has an edge.

So how this plays out will be interesting, but while Google already has an edge for ARM netbook market share, they have an uphill battle for support from hardware vendors and Adobe for the web-crucial Flash.

That said, while heavily-interactive Flash websites won’t work in the Chrome OS browser, HTML 5 has plans for a native video system that, should YouTube convert to it, allow Chrome OS and YouTube to work together until Adobe gets onboard the ARM/Linux Flash scene.

More on this as I get a closer look at the source code (following its release), and hopefully a full-on test of the running OS. For now, let’s just wait and see what happens as this develops.