Whoa.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8139711.stm (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8139711.stm)
"Google is developing an operating system (OS) for personal computers, in a direct challenge to market leader Microsoft and its Windows system."
"One of Google's major goals is to take Microsoft out, to systematically destroy their hold on the market," said Mr Enderle.
"Google wants to eliminate Microsoft and it's a unique battle. The strategy is good. The big question is, will it work?"
This is awesome. Google actually has enough muscle to be a serious competitor to Microsoft. The only downside is learning a new OS if they take off, I'm pretty sick of learning new software at this point.
From the article:
"We're designing the OS to be fast and lightweight, to start up and get you on to the web in a few seconds,"
So... we're talking Android on steroids, for x86 instead of ARM. I read somewhere else that it's basically just a new display + window manager on top of Linux (not X11-based, though). It's a neat idea, but we figured it was coming eventually. Google and MS are going to square off a bit, with Apple kind of sitting on the side doing its own thing. Funnily enough, though, it's in Apple's best interest for Google to pull this off and take the 'low-end' of the market that they themselves have no real interest being in, while keeping close ties with Google's services so OS X is positioned at the high-end. How the iPhone and Android are going to fight, though, has yet to be seen.
Google will also be smart enough to make it oriented toward everyday consumers, but still want to coerce gamers into it, sicne they make a decent chunk of users. And that means being not only able to squeeze decent graphics performance out of it, but also hardware and game compatibility, something that Lunix still struggles with.
My understanding is like an OS that boots into the browser and doesn't run anything else. How could they court gamers with that? Maybe this is their plan: http://code.google.com/p/nativeclient/ (http://code.google.com/p/nativeclient/)
Yeah, they've done some security auditing of nativeclient -- re http://tinyurl.com/nhfem6 (http://tinyurl.com/nhfem6) . It seems very logical that it'll be included in Chrome. Google Gears + NativeClient + Chrome to do most applications without an internet connection seems like it'd be a great hit. Could possibly make an image editing app possible within the browserspace instead of relying on Java/Flash/etc. I guess the only problem with this is that there's no mention of the nativecode being able to access dedicated graphics hardware... but then again, it's nearly 2 and I'm not going to pour the notes ;)
I think Apple has some interest in the netbook market... just not the netbook market as we see it currently. The large amounts of mid-sized touchscreens that they've ordered points to a tablet device being made available in the future, and would likely run a variant of iPhone OS that's been adapted to the interface peculiarities of the screen size. They certainly are interested in smaller form factor machines though, given their investments in imagination technologies, their purchasing of PA Semi, and the hiring of IBM's Papermaster (dealt with PowerPC chip design). Course, then again, Apple may not declare it ready for a long time.
As for iPhone vs Android... I have a feeling that they're already fighting. It's a good thing. As long as Android devices remain on the market and the platform continues being developed, it'll drive iPhone development onward. Currently I'm an iPhone owner, but I'd love to have an android device at times. Multiple application support would be great. And it sort of looks like Sony's next XPERIA model will be a very stylish high end android device...
Call me paranoid, but I'm not actually sure I want Google to own my technology experience from the OS up.
It would be nice if someone could do some actual usability engineering on FOSS, though.
I do have my doubts about google, bit far be it from me to say they arnt a powerful corporation, they surely have the vast resources to do such a thing. But if they really are going with a linux-based sorta system they better at least make it good, there are already a billion versions of linux out there and only ubuntu seems to have taken off at all from its vast basement dwelling programmer fan base.
But all I have seen with linux is server capabilities and just ricing, its fun to have effects, shiny and gadgets but you wont win the market with that. I think the fact that linux has a program to emulate windows XP speaks enough for itself.
IMO the big ol "bad" Microsoft has gotten back up after hitting the dirt hard with Vista with their new soon-to-be-released system Windows 7 I have tested and played with multiple version of the beta and the thing even runs decent on a mere netbook, and on a run of the mill dual core its right at home, they managed to incorporate the look and feels of vista without the feeling like your system is wearing cinder blocks for shoes, so to me it looks like they are gonna re-claim any lost market very soon.
I would have to chock that all up to consumer relations though, as far as I know this is the only Windows OS (and probably the only OS ever) that has ever been just handed out for public testing, people slapped, crammed and threw that thing through the ringers and gave feedback with every little flaw they found and thus MS has had lots of opportunity to polish that OS down before its release and work out most of the bugs.
(the reason I didn't mention linux in the blurb about being the only OS to be handed out is because linux has always been free and there really inst much of a development team that will ever create a final polished version, its more like an eternal beta, like a little kid with a box of lego and a vivid imagination)
I've heard it suggested that this will basically be an OS for netbooks (which I think are getting increasingly squeezed between low-end laptops and high-end smartphones), but we'll see.
Hmmm that would be interesting, but might be a dead end endevor if they wanna soley do net books, linux use to do that aswell with the EeePC and the Acer Aspire One I beleive, but I haven't seen em for ages now, and now pretty much all netbooks have XP as those little things pack power that is more than comperable to the old early-era P4's (those 1.3- 1.7 GHZ systems) infact the Atom processor is almost dead on for specs with those early P4's not jsut the clock speed but also having a 533mhz FSB and 512kb L2 cache. Only differnce being is the size and the fact that you can cool a Atom processor with almost nothing more than a piece of sheet metal on it and a fan blowing across it
I saw the inside of a MSI Wind a few times at my job and I was kinda surprised, though those CPU's can take the heat pretty well, as on average their core temperature is like 50 - 60 degrees.
::) sorry got sorta side-tracked there. I just meant to say that those netbooks do have a little power to em so even with XP set to the most piggy-est settings it still runs great. But hey every company has to start somewhere and if they do try for netbooks that will be their little testing feild so to speak.