What are Google’s Real Motivations Behind Chrome OS?
OS is Google’s latest entry into the consumer space. It is designed to be an operating system that runs on customized hardware and provides the user with only a state-of-the art browser running HTML-5 and some plugins. The tech (and mainstream) media has seen no shortage of opinions about its meaning and future impact on the industry. Unfortunately, I think most people have missed some of the key implications of Chrome OS.[As a disclosure, I am a former Google employee, having worked there from 2002 to 2008, but I don't have any inside information on this project. In fact I didn't even know of its existence before I left.]
Google has two main aims with this project:
- To use the Google brand and buzz about its “game-changing OS” to push for new and better web apps using nascent technology. This lets Google reduce its customers’ dependence on local apps it does not control.
- Once a lot of these apps are deployed and become heavily used, the mass market will force owners of closed systems like the iPhone to implement support for HTML-5, the latest version of HTML, and rich web interfaces. Coupled with net neutrality (which Google currently strongly supporting) this will allow Google to circumvent uncooperative devices and network providers, and access consumers currently hidden behind locked system.Read Morehttp://venturebeat.com/2009/11/27/what-are-googles-real-motivations-behind-chrome-os/
