(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — Four months after announcing it is developing an operating system, Google (www.google.com) has for the first time publicly demonstrated the highly anticipated Chrome OS, which will heavily rely on web applications and cloud storage.
According to PC World, Chrome OS’s strengths, much like browser predecessor Chrome, will be its speed, simplicity, and security. While the Chrome browser can be run in a desktop environment that can run client apps and store files on a hard disk, the Chrome OS is one big step away from a typical operating system.
First off, it is designed for computers, typically netbooks, that boot from solid-state disks, and forgo hard disks altogether in favor of cloud storage.
And, secondly, it will only run web applications — so, for instance, instead of Adobe Photoshop, Chrome users will look to apps like Google’s Picasa. This has the potential to spur developers into creating powerful web-based equivalents to client apps, not to mention the infrastructure to support them.
More than anything, however, the new details of Chrome OS have many bloggers wondering if the world is ready for an operating system that operates almost entirely online — and they don’t seem very optimistic. PC World notes that many are not ready to cut themselves entirely off from local apps and storage, and there remains the question of how Chrome OS will function when there is no Internet connectivity.
An InfoWorld article goes further to the root of the problem — that the Chrome OS simply lacks flexibility. “Google has thrown out the one characteristic that made Windows and, to a lesser extent, Mac OS X and full-blown Linux successful: flexibility,” writes InfoWorld’s Randall C. Kennedy. Sacrificing flexibility for simplicity, however, has worked for certain products such as the Flip camera, yet the challenge remains for web developers to ensure that web apps are not just “good enough,” but are legitimate programs in their own right.
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