Thursday, July 9th 2009
Industry Majors Support Chrome OS, Free Software in the Making
A day into its announcement, Google's ambitious new venture, the Chrome operating system, is receiving support from some of the biggest players in the IT industry. The company also confirmed that Chrome OS will be a free of charge software, requiring no purchase of license to use it. To ensure the OS gets adequate momentum, Google is working with the likes of HP, Acer, Lenovo, ASUS, Toshiba, Texas Instruments and Qualcomm (some of the most relevant names in the netbook industry). The company also detailed about the developer support it plans to spread, with possible pre-release versions towards the end of the year. To the consumer, this means that major computer manufacturers could sell netbooks with Chrome OS preinstalled, with seamless support for their hardware. Early community software development will ensure a good selection of software for the netbook by the time the OS becomes release-grade, ready to be shipped with millions of netbooks.
Source:
Google
22 Comments on Industry Majors Support Chrome OS, Free Software in the Making
But, it sounds like competition for MS. They better diversify.
Check the Netbook market. First Netbooks were shipped with easy to use Linux: sales were crap compared to Windows XP netbooks nowadays, to say it bluntly :ohwell:
And I don't really feel like installing anything google in the first place, Microsoft seems to be the lesser evil to me for some reason. I wouldn't trust google no info on my account, let alone installing an os of theirs. :o
www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aTd2k.YdQZ.Y
As for this Google distro I think the netbook manufacturers would be better off going for a more established Linux build like Ubuntu but I guess they think Google can provide better support or maybe some money is changing hands?
It would be nice to have a new Operating system architecture that wasn't based on Linux. I don't see how this is going to be any different than Solaris or countless other alternatives that are already out there and splitting the development process up even more.
If Sun micro systems and Google could have worked together that might have been more interesting.
And I really don't see this as competition to MS for one simple reason. All the programs for Chrome OS will be browser-based, and hence hosted on Google servers.
There are a lot of people, myself included who want our applications installed on our PCs, where we can do what we want with them.
This is another step towards Cloud Computing, and I'm hating every step.
Still, if I had a netbook or similar low-powered laptop (oh wait, I do lol) I'd definitely put it on there, the less the laptop has to do the better, but there's no way it would be my main OS.
But, as for public perception, that's why this isn't "Linux" -- this is "Chrome." :laugh: If Google is smart, they won't use the word "Linux" at all, just like Apple hardly ever uses "Unix" anywhere. That'll instantly deal with the "this is just a niche-OS" problem.You're kidding me, right?
Want to know why Google isn't more evil than Microsoft? Practically everything they do is open-source. That alone is enough for someone like me to hold them in higher regard. (And please don't repeat that tired stuff about Google "having your info" -- Microsoft has just as much.)
It's more than likely going to be an OS for the next generation of "tablet" netbooks, or something -- devices that people aren't going to expect being able to install Word or Photoshop on, anyway.
Get it? It'll compete against Microsoft in a market where they don't have a very good footing. The Chrome OS isn't really going to be run on normal PC's. :P
Cloud computing for the mainstream is a terrible idea. The internet infrastructure sucks balls.
I think the linux netbooks would sell better if they were available in the 9" and 10" models more readily. I don't think they would outsell the XP models, but I think it would be close, especially if they were priced lower, and they should be priced lower since the Linux OS is free.
You should take a look at HP's "Mi" skin of Ubuntu that they use -- they're getting it right. You can hardly recognize it as either Linux or Windows. It looks more like the interface you'd get on a smartphone.
If you try and sell Linux by using the same standard OS components that people are used to -- windows, desktop icons, and the like -- people are going to expect it to work just like Windows, which isn't going to work. HP's getting it right -- their Mi OS doesn't look like Windows, so no one's going to expect it to run like Windows.
Reminds me more off a smartphone OS than a computer OS. I think you are very right here, for the linux versions to be successful, they can't resemble Windows.
they could then also charge you a "use fee" for each time you use your computer, dosnt that sound fun?
having to check if you can afford to load up office and type up a document :P
greedy bastages will just drive everybody to linux.......then people like us will just keep using old windows versions and playing old games :P