Hot on the heels of announcing everything else you could possibly think of, today Google announced that they’re building an operating system.
Google Chrome OS will be targeted at “netbooks” (read: small laptops) initially, and it will be open source. It’s going to be an exceedingly lightweight OS, designed to get you online and little else. Google claims to be “completely redesigning the underlying security architecture” so you’ll never have to deal with viruses, malware, or security updates. If they pull that off, they win.
Not surprisingly, this is smart. Netbooks are all the rage these days, but they’re usually running some version of—shudder—Windows. Windows on underpowered hardware is not nice. Netbooks are for email and web surfing, and there’s no need for a giant, bloated OS to do those things. The two platforms where there is still opportunity to be the leader are mobile (phones) and somewhat-mobile (netbooks). Apple has a huge lead in the first category, but no one has broken ahead yet in the second. Google just took the lead.
surely my base doesn’t belong to google. right? not my base.
You can strip a Dell netbook and run OS X on it. Look on Gizmodo for instructions.
Windows 7 on a netbook runs great. My girlfriend and I have both been running it on our Lenovo S10 netbooks.
Google’s just building on Linux, with their still-alpha Chrome browser and some new UI. For a good experience right now, either try Windows 7 (the RC is still available) or try Ubuntu Netbook Remix. I dual boot both of those on my S10 and they’re both great. Miles ahead of XP.
You’re a fucking moron.
1/3 of all Dell minis run Ubuntu Linux.
Dimwit.
@5 – Yes, well, 1/3 of one company’s netbooks doesn’t exactly constitute a mass adoption, and there will not be a mass adoption of Ubuntu, now or ever, you mark my words.
Google has the money, the engineers, and the brand to pull this off. Windows 7 may be fine, I haven’t tried it on a Netbook, but the point is that any kind of Windows is unnecessary on a super-mini laptop. Google is taking a new approach where everyone else is just trying to make the old systems work in the new world.
So how many netbooks are running the OS Google just announced they were going to make?
What, exactly, constitutes “taking the lead?”
How did google take the lead when they haven’t released yet?
God, since Josh Feit and Erica Barnett left the only interesting writers left here are Schmader (too infrequent), Savage, Lindy West, and Mudede. The rest are just a joke.
So you hate Windows and Ubuntu even after people point out that they are both doing fine on netbooks?
Why not just give Steve Jobs your liver already?
“Windows on underpowered hardware is not nice.”
Except today’s netbooks are probably quite a bit more powerful than the PCs that were running Windows XP 7 years ago.
“Netbooks are for email and web surfing, and there’s no need for a giant, bloated OS to do those things.”
Heaven forbid that we might want to do a whole lot of other things like manage touch, handwriting and speech interfaces. Or support people with accessibility issues, or who need to input in another language. Or playback audio or video, or work offline when I don’t have wireless.
No sirree I just wanna do text in English on the internet with none of that other bloat shit.
Google didn’t just take anything.
Noone’s said a word about charging.
Microsoft rules the world for money made off of an OS.
Yes, I know some people are pissed about Vista, but wait until Windows 7 hits the market, it runs great. I’ve been running it on my main dev machine since January and it’s been solid.
“Google has the money, the engineers, and the brand to pull this off.”
yeah, just like they had the money, the engineers and the brand to pull off being the browser of choice with chrome right? oh wait, chrome has a very small penetration into the browser market that’s almost not even worth counting. what about google docs? nope, that’s been pretty much a failure. android? that might actually have been worthwhile, had they not waited until AFTER apple released the iphone; too little, too late.
let’s face it, outside of search and email google really hasn’t done anything that’s been impactful to the masses.
Being in Metropolitan Redmond, this SLOG-post was bound to attract astroturf- and payroll-patriot-support of Microsoft. Windows 7! It sucks 35 percent less than Vista! Yaaaaaaaaaay!
Holy shit already, can Microsoft just die, already, please?
Microsoft, please do not die! I need you!
@16: Brooke Shields? Is that you?
Microsoft is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful software company I’ve ever known in my life.
Apple has a huge lead in mobile phones? I’m assuming you’re just talking about smartphones here, because if you really mean all mobile phones, that’s bananas – the iPhone is a drop in the bucket for overall mobile phone sales. But even in the smartphone category, Nokia (using the now open source Symbian) sells four times as many smartphones, and RIM is doubling Apple up. Android isn’t there yet, but there are about 20 new Android designs expected before year end. I would bet a large sum of money that Android handset sales will surpass iPhone sales by end of 2010, if not much sooner. The iPhone is going to wind up in the same place that Macs wound up – as a premium product that is adopted by a small portion of the marketplace, with the mass market ending up at another solution. The iPhone might have a lead today in features, but it certainly doesn’t in the market, and it likely never will.
Sure, some people need more power and a more robust operating system. And they have it. But Anthony is right in that for lots and lots of people, a mini notebook with minimal fuss is all they require. And for this subset of users, Vista (and no doubt its successor) is unnecessary bloatware.
I don’t know if Google Crome OS will catch on or not. But a sleek, pared down OS is certainly a sound concept. And it will be nice for Microsoft to have some real competition in the OS market besides Apple.
@19 – I’m not defining lead in terms of pure market share, obviously. The iPhone has been on the market for 2 years and has over 10% of the worldwide smartphone market, and that share doubled in the last year. Non-smart phones aren’t a platform, they’re just phones, even if you can play Tetris on them. The iPhone isn’t a smartphone, it’s a pocket computer. It’s the HHGTTG. Android may very well give it a run, but that remains to be seen.
While I’m always excited to see somebody stick it to Microsoft, Google has long since stopped pretending to follow what was supposed to be their central motto, “don’t be evil.”
While I’m happy with my Ubuntu Linux netbook, I welcome another competitor wade in. It’s really exciting to finally see some headway in breaking up the MS monopoly these past few years.
I’ve already thought about getting another netbook and playing with adding OS X. I travel a lot and present at conferences, so I do need a fairly powerful and lightweight computer that I can fit into an oversized purse. Still, I’d give the Google OS a shot–with Google docs, I store most of my presentation materials online anyway (flash drive back-up).
@21 – I’m not sure I’m understanding how you’re defining them being in the lead, then. Saying you aren’t talking about market share is fine, but you then go on to talk about how they’ve grown market share. If that’s what you want to talk about, great, but that still has to contend with the fact that despite significant gains, they’re still far, far from being in the lead.
As for the technology, the iPhone is a well presented package, but it’s not by any stretch a “huge leader”. Android really is as capable as the iPhone, and I find it an easier platform to develop on. The shell is arguable not as polished as the iPhone, but that’s not likely to stay true for very long, with efforts like HTC’s Sense coming soon on the Hero. I think to believe that Apple has a huge lead on their competitors discounts the tremendous value that OEMs like Samsung, HTC, LG and others can bring to the platform. When there are 20 different choices for Android phones by the end of the year, all of them trying something unique and hitting different price/feature points, but all of them capable of leveraging the same developer ecosystem, what you’re likely to see is the same Windows/Mac scenario replay: any lead Apple has today is going to be swamped by the sheer volume of effort put out by more open competitors.
And that discussion about Android is only one of the competitors that Apple has. As I mentioned before, Symbian is currently out-selling Apple four to one, and it’s now open source. I’m less confident in Symbian’s future as anything other than a Nokia platform, but that’s still a massive market advantage that could make an enormous difference down the road. I don’t think much of Windows Mobile, having developed for various versions of WIndows CE for ten years or so now, but there will be at least one last gasp with WinMo 7, and LG at least has announced that they anticipate 50 WM designs to ship this year. RIM’s OS is creaky and ancient, but they do a great job on the hardware side, and it’s not difficult to imagine them getting their stuff in gear and taking back momentum from Apple.
I’d dispute the notion that the Apple leads anything in the mobile market, other than the ephemeral distinction of having (for now) arguably the most capable smartphone on the market. They don’t have leadership in any way in sales, their underlying technology is not inherently superior in any way that is going to lead to inevitable leadership, and they have some massive competition that is gearing up to swamp them. They’ll continue to be successful, massively so, but characterizing their position as dominant is just inaccurate.
You’re sounding defensive, Anthony having to respond to comments that point out the ridiculousness of this post. Just because you work on this rinky-dink website doesn’t qualify you to be some sort of tech-world analyst. You really come across as a noob.
Man, computer nerds are touchy!
@25,
He doesn’t have to be a tech-world analyst to report this press release from google. Every news site today seems to have an article about it. It seems pretty foolish to say google has taken the lead though when they haven’t even released the os. I imagine this will be in beta for 5 years though, just like gmail was.
Basically this is just a chrome flavored Linux distro that you have to pay for. Hardly groundbreaking. I’m also a little skeptical about having the company notorious for tracking users and selling their data controlling my entire os.
Todd,
Thank you for evaluating Windows 7 and it’s great to hear that you are enjoying your experience so much! If you are planning on purchasing Windows 7 when it is released it may be helpful to know for a limited time only you can pre-order your copy of Windows 7 Home Premium or Windows 7 Professional today for a discounted price. For more information, see the Windows 7 Pre-Order offer page here: http://tinyurl.com/nldc8p
Jessica
Microsoft Windows Client Team