Google Chrome OS: What lies ahead?
By Renjith VP, SiliconIndia   |   Thursday, 16 December 2010, 13:02 IST   |    2 Comments
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Google Chrome OS: What lies ahead?
Bangalore: It has been quite a long time since Google announced the release of its open-source project, Google Chrome OS or Chromium OS back in July last year, that aims to build an operating system that provides a fast, simple, and more secure computing experience for people who spend most of their time on the web. Well, it's quite enough time to surmise about its features, construe reviews and deduce the company's marketing plans for the same. If you are rather bored by reading its reviews, let's talk about its future as well. The search giant's first stride into OS market was never easy as it announced its plans focusing on netbooks which was slowly dying in the market. Some of the first reviews labeled Chrome OS as another step in allowing Google to create what is called the OS for advertising - an ad platform that extends across all devices and all screens. Free software advocate Richard Stallman described the futuristic co-ordinates of Chrome OS as part of plan 'to push people into careless computing.' Though developing an OS is no easy task, Google is running pretty late on bringing it to the market. However, Google has released a prototype netbook, the Cr-48, to get Chrome into the hands of application developers and reviewers and open-source version is also available for testing as a virtual machine image, either VMware or VirtualBox, and you will have to register to download it. Guess these are enough for us to analyze as to how much Google's OS will drive the future. The OS which is on a cloud puts the bulk of all user activity firmly up in the web. There will be no heavy lifting on the user's netbook as it will all take place up in the cloud with the Chrome OS handling it all. This is so clever on Google's part, and could very well turn the next page on cloud computing. The OS can indeed be called futuristic when you take it from a 'user-istic' view. People handy with Internet Explorer will find Chrome OS a little tricky to grasp at first but Firefox and Opera users will have an easier time adapting, but may still find the concept a bit confusing. The fact each tab has its own interface is counter-intuitive. You do run one browser, but each tab is an instance of its own. Having the OS on cloud has an add-on for Google apart from the fact that it may pose a security issue for the user's data. For Google it's a huge potential as it will further enable them to dig user data to research and increase the advertising potential. The quick setup, short boot time and long battery life will give an added edge to Google OS and will be key features when it plays it competitors in the long run. The wireless built in with WiFi and a 3G modem for wireless broadband, and the way it is designed to stay connected always can ensure its adaptation from netbooks to Smartphones in a shifting market scenario. However the fact that the Chrome browser basically is the OS or at least its interface keeps it very limiting though it keeps things simple. Google should also work on the feature that one can't minimize or re-size Chrome windows because there's no graphical user interface behind it, if it really eyes for grabbing a major share of the OS pie. Reports say that Chrome OS will be launched sometime early next year or towards its mid. Computer users today have carried a large aspect of their work onto the web and extensively deal with various web applications which Google OS can bend to its way. Google being an ardent supporter of Open Source has the basic architecture of Chrome OS structured around the Linux kernel which will reignite the tussle between old foes Microsoft and Linux. Chrome OS is designed to run on both ARM and x86-based chip which is an aspect that scores over Microsoft as Windows is not designed to run on ARM based chips. All said and done, it's up to Google to live up to expectations with an OS which many believe to be 'one size fits all'.

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