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  • Google Chrome OS, in plain English

    17:31 on July 13, 2009 | 0 Comments Tweet This! | Digg This!
    Tags: , , web

    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: , web

    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 we know so far..

    17:27 on July 8, 2009 | 0 Comments Tweet This! | Digg This!
    Tags: , , , web

    There’s a lot of information and news floating around the internet about Google Chrome OS.  This post aims to do a quick roundup of the main information, so you don’t end up viewing the some 1500 news stories (at present) about it!

    I’ve taken information from the original Google blog post (which, of course, we can take as fact), as well as other blogs around asking questions and dicussing the announcement!

    What we know..

    • It’ll be OpenSource – You’ll be able to download the source code.   Google working close with the community is a great thing, and likely to have all of the benefits of OpenSource development with large corporate backing.  Source to be released later this year (2009).
    • Primarily aimed at netbooks to start with, and set for release in the second half of 2010 on netbooks.
    • Designed to be lightweight.
    • Seperate project to Google Android, which is focused on smaller devices such as phones and set-top boxes
    • Designed to work very closely with the web – existing operating systems were designed when everyone didn’t have internet access, and there wasn’t the large amount of online applications now available, such as Google Docs, Google Talk, etc.  Now with the possibilities of web sites, the OS should integrate more/completely.  (of course, this is what Google want…)
    • Speed, simplicity and security are the main aspects.
    • With regards to speed – why should you wait for large applications to load onto your computer just to be able to use them?  Use an online system!
    • Also, with regards to speed, the only thing which can slow it down is the internet connection (or remote server which should be unlikely).  No slowing down over time due to malware, large applications, etc.  PCs/Laptops will run the same as they do the day you bought it!
    • Will run on both x86 and ARM architectures.
    • Google are working with multiple netbook OEMs to get Chrome OS on to netbooks from next year.
    • Chrome OS is designed for people who spend most of their time on the web – who doesn’t nowadays?


    Of course, there are still lots of questions..

    • Will it be ad-supported?  (unlikely being OpenSource, but the Online Applications may be – such as Google Mail)
    • What sort of applications are possible?  Does everything need coding from scratch as a web application?  It’s not likely to run  Adobe PhotoShop (in the current form, at least).. as Chrome OS is Linux and web based.  What about current Linux applications such as GIMP?
    • As it’s OpenSource, will Google allow large modifications by the community?  Will they allow forks of the code to different projects?
    • Will it have much of an interface on the local machine?
    • What sort of internet connection will someone need to be able to use it properly?
    • How extendable is it?  It should be very extendable being OpenSource – that’s the point, hopefully!
    • Will it work on my current PC/Laptop?  Can I run it at the same time as Windows?  Will it work on my Mac?  (Linux works on all, as a dualboot or even as a Live CD, so I don’t see why not?)
    • Can it take a serious market share away from Microsoft Windows?  No.. really.. can it?  And, of course, what about Mac OS X?   Where does it leave other Linux distributions such as Ubuntu?
    • A million and one other questions which will hopefully become clear pretty soon!

    This is a roundup of what we do know and a few common questions I’m seeing floating around the internet on various blogs.

    What do you think to Chrome OS?  Is it going to be a great success or a disaster?  Do you have any questions you’d like answering?  We might not have the answer now, but we will certainly look out for them in the future.

    Use the comments on this post to let us know your thoughts.. or if you use Twitter, we’re on there @droptips!

     

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