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  • Google Chrome OS, in plain English

    17:31 on July 13, 2009 | 0 Comments Tweet This! | Digg This!
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    You’ve probably read the thousands of articles around the web about Google Chrome OS – OpenSource, Web2.0, and Linux.  You probably don’t care about these three words – you may not even know what it means, so I’m going try and sum up what Google Chrome OS is about in non-tech terms and what it can mean to you, if anything.

    Firstly Chrome OS is a replacement for Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac OS X, and even the many Linux distributions you may be already using.  It’s designed from the ground up to run differently than those though, in that it’ll be primarily aimed at providing web applications to the user.  Of course, you will  need an internet connection to benefit from this operating system. Modern web applications, though, can continue to work when disconnected, for those times you can’t get an internet connection.

    It’s going to be OpenSource, which means people from all around the world, not just Google employees, can work on the operating system by making it better/increasing functionality.  It also means that you can use the operating system with no cost – you won’t need to pop down to the shops to buy this one!

    Chrome OS is going to fully utilise the web – you won’t need applications on your local PC at all – no more Microsoft Office, no more lengthy installation procedures.  What you will have is a “view to the web” – like a web browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, etc), you’ll visit web sites and use applications on them.  You may be familiar with Google Apps (Hotmail is an example of a web-based e-mail service, so this is also a good example of a web application) – these sort of applications are where Google want us to be (of course, that’s their core business apart from search), and they want people to embrace these new web technologies, and part of that plan is to release an operating system which can do nothing else, but use them!

    Google are focusing on netbook’s to start with – but what is a netbook?  A netbook is an ultraportable notebook computer, around the 9-10″ LCD screen size, lowish specification and very portable.  A large amount of companies such as Carphonewarehouse, in the United Kingdon at least, are starting to bundle these small netbooks with mobile broadband contracts. They’re primarily aimed at basic web browsing and computer use on the move – Google Chrome OS will certainly strengthen their “web usage” aspect.

    Will you be able to run all of your games?  Probably not.. there is scope to do so, but on the specification we have up to now, it’s not looking likely.  Similarly with people who use specialist packages, such as Adobe Photoshop – I don’t think Chrome OS will be for you at this point.

    And that’s it really, a new operating system, which instead of running applications locally, will fully embrace web sites and new web applications running on them.

    Please subscribe to our mailing list or RSS feed on the righthand side of this page, to be kept up to date with new developments about Google Chrome OS.

     

  • Web Applications: How will they affect the server market?

    12:43 on July 13, 2009 | 0 Comments Tweet This! | Digg This!
    Tags: news,

    There’s an ever increasing drive towards the use of web applications, as opposed to running various services locally and in-house.  But what does that mean for the corporate world?

    Not that long ago, for corporate e-mail as an example, the only feasible option was to host your own local mail services, on single or multiple servers depending on scale.  This is where services such as Microsoft Exchange became popular – business e-mail, contacts, calendars and collaboration within the organisation for all employees.
    Nowadays, there are multiple online services which offer similar hosted services, but for a monthly cost – no local servers, no initial outlay, no costly upgrades, and no costly administration time required.

    Google Apps is one such example of how things are changing not only for the individual, but also for businesses around the world – the case is simple – why spend time implementing a costly system, on your own hardware, when you can use a service, often better (although that is subjective), for an ongoing monthly or yearly cost.

    With the announcement of Google Chrome OS, the case to use web applications is greater than ever – Chrome OS’ primary focus is on web applications, so it is clear on which direction Google would like to see people going.

    But what about manufacturers such as Dell, HP, IBM, and the many other server suppliers?  Undoubtably, this trend will effect their corporate sales, but to what extent?  It seems to me that these companies may have to reassess their markets at some point soon for certain sectors.

    Companies in the small/medium business area are morely likely to be looking at the new web applications, and certainly be interested in whether or not it would work for their business.  The companies who would be purchasing a single server to host their mail – would they do that, and incur the costs of the setup, maintenance, and upgrade costs if they could use a perfectly functioning, fully featured web application? Web applications are always getting better, and there will come a point when the benefits are too difficult to ignore.

    The majority of articles around the internet are focusing on how Chrome OS and the trend to use web applications will affect Microsoft and Apple – both who have their own, successful, server operating systems and applications.  In the case of Microsoft, their Office package is used worldwide, by millions of people, and it’s a similar story with Microsoft Exchange for e-mail.  Both, however, are replaceable, and as mentioned above, Google Apps has made big steps in doing that.

    Very few articles are focusing on the impact of the manufacturers of the hardware they run on and there seems to be some big questions which we will see work out over the coming months and years.  But how can they minimise the impact of web applications to their business?

    • They may need to start focussing their core sales at larger corporations, who may not be able to benefit straight away from these new web applications, and still require in house services, maybe for regulatory purposes.  I’m not sure migrating 50,000 employees to a hosted e-mail service is a great proposition right now.
    • The providers of the applications themselves – end user companies may not be buying servers, but the companies developing these web applications most definetely will require hardware to serve their new application to the world, and for the successful ones, serious infrastructure will be required – large storage arrays for the data, many servers to ensure redundancy and high performance, and a solid network infrastructure.

    However, there does seem to be an increase of  development towards higher end solutions – new virtualisation techniques aimed at data centre usage, new storage hardware including more affordable SANs, and new ways to save energy usage for large server farms (again, very useful in a data centre environment where power is a significant cost to consider), so maybe they’ve started to anticipate this trend already.

    What do you think?  Maybe you work in a company as a system administrator – would you outsource some core services and demote those local servers? I’d really like to hear your thoughts, so please leave comments on this post or tweet about it on Twitter @dazuk.

     

  • Google Chrome OS – What could it mean for netbooks?

    23:32 on July 10, 2009 | 0 Comments Tweet This! | Digg This!
    Tags: , , news

    The announcement of Google Chrome OS is certainly causing a stir around the internet.  Questions questions questions – everyone has them, and very few have answers up to now.

    Initially, Google Chrome OS is going to be aimed at netbooks – you know, those small, ultra portable, cheap machines which aren’t quite powerful enough to be a proper laptop for most people, but are great to carry with you for basic computing.

    So what could Google Chrome OS mean for these devices?  Well.. I think you’ll agree, they could open that whole market up even more, and in a big way.

    Specification – Speed, Storage, and Graphics

    Netbooks generally come with a low power processor (Intel Atom for example), around 1GB RAM and a low end graphics card to power the small LCD.  This not only keeps the cost down, but also improves battery life and of course produces a lighter device, which, is one of the primary focuses of the machine.

    The fact is, Google Chrome OS, in theory, should be pretty light on resources – no applications to install to take up hard drive space, no applications to take up large amounts of RAM when running, and no heavy processing duties to carry out number crunching.

    Everything should/will (?) be carried out server side – the device is only there to display the information being fed to it.  I guess one aspect which wouldn’t be web driven is playing a DVD for example, but DVD playing can be completed quite easily on standard netbook hardware.

    Specification is no longer an important factor then, if the device runs Google Chrome OS and embraces web applications.

    Cost

    A lot of netbooks come with a version of Microsoft Windows, although some do ship with a Linux installation. Google Chrome OS will be OpenSource, so therefore should have no cost associated with installing this to the laptop in terms of licensing.  In the case of the Windows’ netbooks, Google Chrome OS netbooks should be cheaper…… they can stay at a lower spec, with an OS which doesn’t “cost” a lot.

    Applications

    It will be interesting to see how applications are offered for use on Google Chrome OS.

    Firstly, there’s the matter of cost/usage.  Would you pay to use each application?  Pay to remove ads?  Pay a monthly/yearly fee and gain access to a web app?  Purely advertisment supported?  Lots of possibilities.

    The other thing to consider is software upgrade costs – there, in theory, shouldn’t be any.  If you are paying a monthly/yearly fee or using an ad-supported application, you would think that the web service offering that service would provide you with updates they make as they make them.  It doesn’t make sense to maintain multiple online versions, for different people – it’s a logistical and support nightmare – everyone on the newest and latest version, with all bug fixes is the way to go.
    Everyone has bought an application and then within a year it’s out of date and you’re being e-mailed about all the great new features the new version has – wouldn’t it be great if you just opened that application up again and you had those features for no additional cost?  That’s what web can applications offer.

    I’ll probably go into more detail about the apps in a future post, so keep checking back!

    Portability

    As mentioned above, portability is an important factor with netbooks – but we still have a sitation where if you have a file on your desktop machine, and you want to take it away with you to view/change whilst on the road, how do you do that?  You may use various methods including USB memory sticks, e-mailing them, etc – but then you get into the problem of having to “resync” the files when you return.  With Google Chrome OS, the emphasis is on online content – so, that document you have, if you create and edit it in Google Docs, it’ll be available from anywhere with an internet connection – your netbook, your PC, a laptop, a library PC, etc.

    Then eventually, you’ll start using Google Chrome OS on your home PC (I guess that’s Google’s long term plan), and then data storage “in the cloud” really starts to make sense for you and your files – especially if you’re on the road a lot.

    Collaboration with others

    Collaboration is also a great feature of web-based applications – if you can access the files, this seems to suggest you can invite other people to view the files – you certainly can with Google Docs for example – if you share a file with another user, you can then view/edit it together – no complex file server configuration, just an internet connection and a browser for the parites involved.

    Chrome OS Compatibility with Existing Hardware

    Initially, Google are going to be working with OEMs to distribute Google Chrome OS on netbooks, but what about your existing netbook?  Will you need to buy a new machine?
    Well, probably not – As Google Chrome OS is going to be an OpenSource offering based upon Linux, there is a large community already which work hard on creating a robust kernel with large hardware support.  That’s the great thing about OpenSource – with millions of people worldwide contributing towards a project, someone, somewhere, probably has that same hardware as you and is working on producing drivers/modules/code to support it.

    So, in short, it’ll probably work with what you have at some point in the future, if not straight away.

    Conclusion

    It’s certainly a big announcement from Google, and there’s definetely justification for the large amount of press coverage you are seeing.

    With netbooks certainly, the emphasis is on web content.. “a window to the web” if you like, and the current offerings seem to revolve around a web browser and some local applications – not really fully maximising what the device is/should be about.  With the release of Google Chrome OS, this could all change, and we could find ourselves maximising the use of new and existing online services a whole lot more.

    Stay with droptips to be the latest to learn about the new OS, as and when details become available!  Subscribe to our RSS feed or E-mail notifications for any new posts made here on droptips.com, so you’ll be the first to know, what we know, with regards to this exciting new operating system!

    Please let me know your thoughts by using the comments on this post, or on Twitter @dazuk!

     

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