Google Chrome OS and Their Hopes for the Cloud

Google is holding an event right now in which they are unveiling what they are calling the Chrome OS.  Chrome has hither to been known as a browser, one that has garnered an impressive 40 million users.  But what I find interesting is the bet Google is making that more and more “computing” will take place in the Cloud or over the internet.  To support this they point to the continued growth of the netbook, and the movement away from phones to tablets. The growth of netbooks certainly seems true.  I don’t understand how tablets will replace phones.  Other than that phones seem to be moving to a touch screen interface, I think what compels people to them is first and foremost their size.

But all arguments aside, I agree that we are moving more and more to applications and services occurring in the cloud.  I’d be interested in seeing the statistics, but it seems to me that most people’s demands of a computer are pretty limited; web browsing, video watching, communicating with friends via social networks, dealing with PDF’s, Word, Excel, and Powerpoint.  This excludes, all processor intensive activities, Gaming, most creative fields like music or video creation, or software development.  But I have felt for quite a while that people need a whole lot less from their computers than they are capable of.  And this is mostly informed by my helping people put computers together and learning what exactly they do with their computers.

And also interesting to note is how hard they are railing on the easiest objections people may have to cloud computing:  speed, simplicity and security.   If everything exists in the cloud than we really are a lot less secure.  I’m glad to hear they are thinking of that.  They have something called Verified Boot in which Chrome OS automatically updates itself with security patches. Every time you boot Chrome it double checks what you’re running. If something fails the cryptographic system check, it reboots to give you a clean image.  This sounds like a very good thing.

They’re making the case for a cloud OS being faster by saying the path to activity requires fewer steps as seen below:

They  currently state that it takes 7 seconds to log into the browser and another 3 seconds to load an app.  That’s not bad. If more and more moves to the cloud then speed will definitely be an issue.  Already on the East Coast I believe we have slower internet speeds because of laden infrastructure.  It seems their speed assertions are dependent on many variable they do not control.  I’m not totally convinced they will be able to do much…either that or they will never be able to make consistent claims…everyone’s experience will be so different.

Simplicity, well, we’ll have to see about that as well.  The cloud isn’t owned or controlled by one entity so I’m not sure how they will accomplish that.  Can they control a set number of things, say, how Chrome interacts with Flash based games?  Sure.  Will they be able to ensure that it is simpler than what exists now?  I don’t know.

Either way, it will be very interesting to see how this move plays out.  I think Google’s approach in the mobile world with Android has been pretty amazing, will they score another run in the cloud?  We’ll see.

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