Google’s Path to Success with Chrome OS

It didn’t take long for Google’s announcement of a new Chrome OS to cause a stir around the Internet. Almost immediately news articles and blog posts came flying in from everywhere claiming to know exactly why the Chrome OS would either throw M$ Bill into bankruptcy or to the other extreme Five Reasons Google Chrome OS Will Fail or 10 Reasons Why Chrome OS is No Windows Killer. And not surprisingly I have a totally unique opinion on this announcement and Chrome OS, just like everyone else.

Overall I think Chrome OS, based on Linux, can be a success. I’ve never understood why Linux hasn’t had greater acceptance in the marketplace. For the last several years, the Linux desktop (or laptop or netbook) experience has been overall very good. Device support, including wireless, has made some amazing strides and it is seldom that I find a piece of hardware that has been on the market for several months that doesn’t work right away with most Linux distros I use. The price is right (free), it looks good and it just works. Google’s choice of Linux as a starting point is an excellent one and I think most of the issues that people have about their data being stored on the “cloud” can be addressed. There are just a few things that I think Google is going to have to do extra to make Chrome OS a success.

1 - Secure the Cloud, people want to know that their stored data is safe and it is essential to the success of the “cloud” idea that Google provide the proper safeguards for user data. In addition, that data needs to be safe between the user’s machine and the cloud so Google will also need to adopt HTTPS for all data transfers for their applications.

2 - Secure Browsing Experience, in my mind this goes beyond just being able to HTTPS your Gmail and Google Docs. If Google wants to capture the mobile market place with always connected to the internet applications then they are going to have to take steps to make the ENTIRE browsing experience secure. To do that they should offer free VPN back to a secure Google server. They already provide this out in Mountain View, California with their Google Wifi services through Google Secure Access; provide it to all users of Chrome OS.

If Google doesn’t mess up the current Linux experience and does just these two additional things then I think their new OS can rise to the top of the Linux distros and equal Apple’s OS X market share within 2 years of launch. Brand name means a lot and Google has it.

But if they want more than that, if they really want to challenge the big boys in Redmond then they need to take one more big step…

3 - Partner with Adobe! People who use Adobe applications can not live without them. Microsoft’s applications, they can take them or leave them. Microsoft Office? Google Docs or OpenOffice will do just as well for most people when they give them an honest shot. Adobe’s Photoshop, Illustrator, Acrobat, Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Contribute, InDesign, ColdFusion; people don’t want an alternative, they want the real deal. Honestly, Adobe could have made the same announcement Google made (an OS based on Linux), added that they were going to incorporate OpenOffice, guaranteed all their software would work in the new OS and I think it would have been over Game, Set, and Match to Adobe. But they didn’t and the good news is there is still time for Google to partner with Adobe and bring all the Adobe applications to the new OS.

I’m excited about the new Chrome OS. At a minimum I think it will do a great deal to introduce new users to all the current greatness of Linux so many of us already enjoy so from that perspective I think Chrome OS is already a win. If Google plays their cards right though I can see Chrome OS growing to what most Linux users have been building toward, a serious contender to Microsoft for the OS marketplace.

http://montysmuse.com/2009/07/googles-path-to-success-with-chrome-os/

Official Google Blog: Introducing the Google Chrome OS

Official Google Blog: Introducing the Google Chrome OS

7/07/2009 09:37:00 PM

It's been an exciting nine months since we launched the Google Chrome browser. Already, over 30 million people use it regularly. We designed Google Chrome for people who live on the web — searching for information, checking email, catching up on the news, shopping or just staying in touch with friends. However, the operating systems that browsers run on were designed in an era where there was no web. So today, we're announcing a new project that's a natural extension of Google Chrome — the Google Chrome Operating System. It's our attempt to re-think what operating systems should be.

Google Chrome OS is 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.

Speed, simplicity and security are the key aspects of Google Chrome OS. We're designing the OS to be fast and lightweight, to start up and get you onto the web in a few seconds. The user interface is minimal to stay out of your way, and most of the user experience takes place on the web. And as we did for the Google Chrome browser, we are going back to the basics and completely redesigning the underlying security architecture of the OS so that users don't have to deal with viruses, malware and security updates. It should just work.

Google Chrome OS will run on both x86 as well as ARM chips and we are 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.

Google Chrome OS is a new project, separate from Android. Android was designed from the beginning to work across a variety of devices from phones to set-top boxes to netbooks. Google Chrome OS is being created for people who spend most of their time on the web, and is being designed to power computers ranging from small netbooks to full-size desktop systems. While there are areas where Google Chrome OS and Android overlap, we believe choice will drive innovation for the benefit of everyone, including Google.

We hear a lot from our users and their message is clear — computers need to get better. People want to get to their email instantly, without wasting time waiting for their computers to boot and browsers to start up. They want their computers to always run as fast as when they first bought them. They want their data to be accessible to them wherever they are and not have to worry about losing their computer or forgetting to back up files. Even more importantly, they don't want to spend hours configuring their computers to work with every new piece of hardware, or have to worry about constant software updates. And any time our users have a better computing experience, Google benefits as well by having happier users who are more likely to spend time on the Internet.

We have a lot of work to do, and we're definitely going to need a lot of help from the open source community to accomplish this vision. We're excited for what's to come and we hope you are too. Stay tuned for more updates in the fall and have a great summer.

Update on 7/8/2009: We have posted an FAQ on the Google Chrome Blog.

Posted by Sundar Pichai, VP Product Management and Linus Upson, Engineering Director