Google announces Chrome OS
8 July, 2009
By Liam Lahey |
Google Inc. has thrown down the operating system gauntlet, announcing the rollout of its' Chrome OS late yesterday while stating current OSs that browsers run on were designed in an era where there was no web.
In an online statement, Google's Sundar Pichai, vice president, product management and Linus Upson, engineering director, described the Chrome OS as "an open source, lightweight operating system that will initially be targeted at netbooks. Later this year we will open-source its code, and netbooks running Google Chrome OS will be available for consumers in the second half of 2010. Because we're already talking to partners about the project, and we'll soon be working with the open source community, we wanted to share our vision now so everyone understands what we are trying to achieve."
The move by Google is indeed a stone tossed at Windows. Microsoft Corp., the Redmond, Wash.-based software giant, is the OS market leader worldwide. Microsoft has had contenders in the OS space before, but none quite like Google.
But is Google over-extending itself? Some would argue the company has no choice but to keep fighting the good fight with Microsoft wherever it can compete.
"This has been coming for a while, and on Google's own timeline it'll still be a while before we see finalized product and the fight actually starts," said Warren Shiau, lead analyst, IT research, The Strategic Counsel. "When it does start, there are a lot of things that will be really interesting. First in my mind is whether the OS decides the fight or applications decide the fight. If we're talking enterprise, then what's Google going to do about the enterprise Office legacy? What is it going to do about Office web apps? And what is it going to do about Office integration with the rest of the enterprise infrastructure?"
Office 2010 is looking awfully strong as a real enterprise productivity tool versus Google apps which is still looking rather personal productivity-oriented, he added. Channel-wise that means far more opportunities with Windows and Office. "I think Microsoft is right -- Office will decide things," Shiau said.
Google said the Chrome OS will run on both x86 as well as ARM chips. The company said it is also working with multiple OEMs to bring a number of netbooks to market next year.
"The software architecture is simple -- Google Chrome running within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel. For application developers, the web is the platform. All web-based applications will automatically work and new applications can be written using your favorite web technologies. And of course, these apps will run not only on Google Chrome OS, but on any standards-based browser on Windows, Mac and Linux thereby giving developers the largest user base of any platform."
Michelle Warren, principal analyst, MW Consulting & Research, said the competition for the OS space is good and will benefit customers in the long run. That said, Google is going to base its OS on Linux and open source already offers an OS. Thus the competition -- namely for Microsoft but also for current open source vendors -- will increase.
"Microsoft does have the OS market sown up, however. Google's announcement is interesting, as it also coincides with the Windows 7 launch and with the introduction of Office 2010," she said. "The Chrome OS has a chance in the consumer/small business market."
From a channel/vendor partnerships perspective, these are going to be critical for Google's success in this space, she added. "Microsoft has a really solid partner community established. That said, partners have to consider what users want and if Chrome can build up a demand . . . currently, Google is online so there's no channel required. It will have to build some trust and incentives before partners will drop Microsoft. Partners might, however, offer both solutions."
Rob Enderle, principal analyst, The Enderle Group, said Google's platform is based on Android and it follows that model. The Linux kernel (much like the MacOS has a UNIX kernel), has zero or near zero price with revenue based on royalties from applications and advertising, is very thin and designed to be connected most of the time (but with off-line capability).
"In short this is an OS that is designed for the way the world is not, heavily web-centric and always connected, and anticipates the coming cloud wave much like DOS/Windows anticipated the PC wave," he said. "This will favor those that have contemplated back end (web-based) services and can shift their model to embrace them. If successful it should lead to stronger customer loyalty to the solution provider and less customer churn. Even the wireless carriers are excited about this platform and both traditional PC OEMs and cell phone companies are positioning to adopt it."
Google wants to put Microsoft out of business, Enderle added, but with search at risk and Bing gaining market share they may, in fact, be overreaching.
Moreover, people tend to be creatures of habit and to get them to move to a new platform requires very strong marketing, something that Apple has demonstrated for much of this decade, he noted.
"Microsoft just started to market well again after nearly two decades of evidently forgetting how to even spell the word. Google's PR is ranked towards the bottom in the industry and their marketing is all but nonexistent, evidently believing as Microsoft once did that marketing is largely the responsibility of their partners," he said. "On top of that, they are already being treated as a monopoly and Microsoft was just ordered by the EU to separate their browser from their OS, something that Google won't be able to do. Google's technical strategy is sound but their inability to market or do effective PR is likely their Achilles Heel and it may doom this effort." |
