Google Chrome OS – web 3.0?
By Matthew Simon • Jul 8th, 2009 • Category: FeaturesAs any Iphone user will tell you, there’s ain’t much you can’t do with web apps.
Apple’s lightweight device has demonstrated just how capable you really can be with just an internet connection and a load of cloud-based applications. It doesn’t need lightning fast processors or fat-pipe internet connection…it just works. In addition, Apple’s famous virus-resistance has been carried across to the Iphone, and it appears to be something Google will be implementing in their recently announced Chrome OS.
We’ve seen a lot of blurring of the lines between online and offline recently. Google Gears took us one step beyond simple online/offline sychronization and enabled us to use our favourite web apps without an internet connection. More recently, Adobe Air platforms have begun to extend the functionality of API enabled web apps like Twitter into that rarely navigated purgatory previously occupied by nefarious adware products. It’s increasingly apparent that our installed desktop applications are dating fast in comparison to our web apps, and without periodic synchronization or updates some of them are becoming archaic.
How long will it be before my creaky CS3 Adobe suite starts to look completely outclassed by free online apps? I might not be using Photoshop online right now, but if my browser was online and I could be running it all off a Netbook…hmm.
From an IB perspective, this fits well with our organizational ambitions – to be mobile, reactive and lightweight. Anything that reduces the burden of support is good for our business. What will be interesting, is to see how these products mature beyond offering cut-down but functional alternatives to the installed leviathans we rely on.
Beyond the move to cloud computing, I’d be very surprised if Google didn’t take this opportunity to push Google Connect as part of the package. If they score with their OS, the packaging of a single sign-on solution alongside it as an innocent freebie could just make Google OS the next big thing.
Chrome OS is based on Linux and is only available for Netbooks. I wonder if Google would make an OS that would compete with Windows XP or Windows 7.
I am hopeful that this development will eventually lead to cheaper and better software being available to IB schools and pupils in developing countries. It certainly appears to bode well.