Thursday, October 7, 2010

Another layer in Google's Infrastructure: Google Chrome OS



Here is video of how Google's Chrome OS fits into their overall web strategy. This is just another example of how Google uses its internal technology as a competitive advantage. Since Google has decided to keep this platform completely free, what challenges could they encounter in the next 2-5 years?

5 comments:

  1. Challenges: Adoption by consumers, developer support, netbook/tablet market.

    There is also competition with the Android mobile platform itself. As mobile devices become increasingly powerful and useful, will there be much of a need for a tablet/netbook? Or will Google try to eventually position itself to challenge OS X and Windows?

    On the flip-side as wi-fi and internet becomes more ubiquitous, not just in our homes, but cafes, buses, and airplanes, this supports Google's point that more of our computing needs are on the internet/cloud. And with developments in wimax and "white space" this might be the a very good solution for consumers' computing needs.

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  2. 1. The Chrome OS appears to be targeting a specific user segment who are “focused on the internet” since the key value propositions are: 1) Faster boot-up 2) Simplified interface and 3) Lower costs.
    2. While there will be an expected pricing impact on PCs, pricing will still be left mainly to manufacturers rather than controlled by Google. Due to the fact that Chrome OS is being offered for free this may create a new economy of users looking for cheaper computing platforms. Google could target netbook users to build its market share first.
    3. However, the same target market are also likely to have privacy concerns about having information stored in the cloud even if they were using them only as secondary machines. This may impede the rate of adoption.
    4. Google has to work with the developer community to create web apps (maybe using HTML 5?) to drive appeal of the OS. However, these require more resources on the part of developers and advertising revenue may not suffice.

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  3. I'm concerned about the computing cloud potential Google or any other company will have to offer in order to make this idea viable. Since most of the the computing function will be shifted to online clouds, it may require clouds to offer combined computing power of millions of today's personal computers and be able to transmit the results in timely manners. Does this mean that virtual memory and bandwidth companies will focus their work exclusively on advancing the computing power of clouds servers and transmission speed, and to what extend in time frames they may reach new limits?
    The opportunity actually is very interesting for me and I consider it to be a huge step towards mobile platforms. However, I'm very curious how companies will work it out.

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  4. I think that a Computer that is only a browser would be enough for most people since most of the time you check your mail, search for something or go on facebook. As Iulian said, it would be difficult to realize since it always takes time until your web documents are opened and it are few milliseconds seconds that make a huge difference (like with previews of pages on the google search which took longer to load) and offline software has more functionality so far.

    But there are challenges not only in that area for google: I just read that bing got integration to facebook and will offer social search. This could lead to very interesting developments in the distribution of market share and competition.

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  5. I agree Alexander, the challenge from the "Facebook/Microsoft" search extension is a tough combination to match - even for Google.

    This area of social media search is probably the only domain that google cannot touch, due to the "monopoly" of Facebook in that area.

    It will be interesting to see how Google reacts to this.

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