Wednesday, July 15th 2009
Gates Downplays Chrome OS
Google's recent announcement of the Chrome OS, a web-oriented operating system that aims to use practicality and speed as its USPs, created more than just a few waves in the IT world. The firm later added that Chrome was going to be a free software, and has the support of some of the biggest names in the industry. At the receiving end of a potential competitor both in the operating system and cloud computing businesses, undoubtedly is Microsoft.
In an interview with CNet's Ina Fried, Bill Gates took the liberty of commenting on this development and implied that the waves Chrome OS created, are but in a teacup. "There's many, many forms of Linux operating systems out there and packaged in different ways and booted in different ways," Gates said, "In some ways I am surprised people are acting like there's something new. I mean, you've got Android running on Netbooks. It's got a browser in it," he added.
Gates further went on to downplay Chrome OS saying that there's nothing much left to talk about it, since Google kept such a low profile on how it's going to implement the idea. "The more vague they are, the more interesting it is," he said. Google earlier announced that it wants its developer community to focus on web-based applications, rather than Linux-based ones, so the application has the broadest compatible platform base. Perhaps Chrome OS will then serve as the best client platform for these applications.
A similar statement came from Microsoft's CEO, Steve Ballmer, during Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Conference in New Orleans, who said that the Windows is the right approach, rather than a browser-centric OS such as Chrome. "We don't need a new operating system," said Ballmer. "What we do need to do is to continue to evolve Windows, Windows Applications, IE (Internet Explorer), the way IE works in totality with Windows and how we build applications like Office...and we need to make sure we can bring our customers and partners with us," he added. Both Ballmer and Gates stressed that having two major client operating systems isn't necessarily a positive thing. Google maintains that its Chrome OS will be consumer-ready by the second half of 2010.
Sources:
1, 2
In an interview with CNet's Ina Fried, Bill Gates took the liberty of commenting on this development and implied that the waves Chrome OS created, are but in a teacup. "There's many, many forms of Linux operating systems out there and packaged in different ways and booted in different ways," Gates said, "In some ways I am surprised people are acting like there's something new. I mean, you've got Android running on Netbooks. It's got a browser in it," he added.
Gates further went on to downplay Chrome OS saying that there's nothing much left to talk about it, since Google kept such a low profile on how it's going to implement the idea. "The more vague they are, the more interesting it is," he said. Google earlier announced that it wants its developer community to focus on web-based applications, rather than Linux-based ones, so the application has the broadest compatible platform base. Perhaps Chrome OS will then serve as the best client platform for these applications.
A similar statement came from Microsoft's CEO, Steve Ballmer, during Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Conference in New Orleans, who said that the Windows is the right approach, rather than a browser-centric OS such as Chrome. "We don't need a new operating system," said Ballmer. "What we do need to do is to continue to evolve Windows, Windows Applications, IE (Internet Explorer), the way IE works in totality with Windows and how we build applications like Office...and we need to make sure we can bring our customers and partners with us," he added. Both Ballmer and Gates stressed that having two major client operating systems isn't necessarily a positive thing. Google maintains that its Chrome OS will be consumer-ready by the second half of 2010.
134 Comments on Gates Downplays Chrome OS
Windowswhatever they were using previously.www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3vv0_RNTM8I really don't think Google is going to compete with Windows directly. If so, it'll be one of the first mistakes they've made.
For instance, you're not going to see this thing targeted towards desktops or even mainstream laptops. Hell, maybe not even netbooks.
I mean -- has to be, or else it's going to fail. Google seems like they know what they're doing, though.
as to most users not knowing what linux is, thats true, but they dont really know what windows is either, my own mother use to refer to office and windows as "windows" this isnt uncommon, most people just want it to work they really couldnt care less what OS or browser or wtfe is on the system, all they care about is that they can download porn, email, facebook, myspace, exct.
Just today, the Autotrader rep for my dad's carlot came in and told us that Autotrader.com is backtracking... What do I mean by this? They are switching all of their computers/laptops back to XP from Vista. This isn't some article I'm reading on the internet, this is first hand real life.
What's more, this same trend is starting to become prevalent with Windows 7... Business is looking away from Microsoft's new releases.
Since it'll be open source it'll either be easy to develop for, or google will release an SDK.
Have you ever jailbroken an iPhone, or modded an xbox?
Hackers are AMAZING. There are whole suites and repositorys dedicated to simple installation.
Use Cydia, Icy, or even Installous for iPhone. the iPhone has better package management tools than most Linux distros.
Chrome OS won't be an exception.
though technically "crackers" :P, there's very little that can't be hacked software wise, and if it has a linux kernal you can bet money if google doesn't officially provide support for linux apps, which would be retarded as supporting them would further support their OS even more, that there will be something on the net to run apps on it. I mean shoot developers try to keep came encrypted to stop pirating but no success yet to stop it.
games
educational
multimedia
video
music
etc...
just because the iphone and OSX dont really show you a cmd prompt or a scrolling list of what is happening (think cydia install screen) and instead using pretty loading bars and blinking icons doesnt mean its that much diffirent than linux mac products are closer to their linux cousins than windows is.
You can make vista look and feel like XP if you want, SO that cuts the learning curve down, the other main issue is the fact alot of companies dont update to current service packs, I saw a bank wipe their new vista laptops due 100% to the fact that they had vista pre-sp1 issues, had they updated to sp1/sp2 they wouldnt have had the issues they where running into(one of the issues was that adobe reader wouldnt work properly, and adobe+ms patches fixed that long ago)