[Macworld]

Post your comments for With OS project, is Google over-extending itself? here

[bigh]

Like netbooks themselves, the success of Chrome will probably boil down to ability and speed. If they keep it too steamlined or rely on emulation layers, it will probably stay limited and slow. It may even tarnish the sparkling Google brand.
For many users it may do just fine... but some may be disappointed to find it too limited, again like netbooks themselves.

[Hamranhansenhansen]

They don't need to recreate the whole of Windows, they just need to add file management and media playback to Chrome. A good 98% of Windows is only used by 10% or less of the users. Most Windows users are running a browser and not much else.
If Google makes something where you can buy a basic notebook computer, boot it up, login, and be presented with Chrome where you can login to Facebook, Twitter, etc. and it is fast and stable and no viruses? A lot of people will like that.
Internally, Google already has a lot of systems running their custom operating system. A lot of that work may be leveraged here. The fact that we are hearing about this now doesn't mean they're just getting started.

[dogooddan]

This is macworld, so I'll point out that gorilla in the room - where's chrome for mac? there's a development release - without history, bookmarks, or many of the other features in chrome. What's up with that?

[context]

Hamranhansenhansen said:

They don't need to recreate the whole of Windows, they just need to add file management and media playback to Chrome. A good 98% of Windows is only used by 10% or less of the users. Most Windows users are running a browser and not much else.

This is bang-on, I think.

[drdreric]

I wonder if Google giving away (or bargain pricing) an OS is an anti-trust issue? M$ muscled in on browsers by subsidizing a free browser with money from sales of the dominant OS, killing the $30 version of Netscape. Seems like Google using its dominance in search and online ads to subsidize an OS where the other competitors charge money is an abuse of the dominant/monopoly position in search and ads. Yes, there are open-source projects, but even there most people buy a disk from a vendor who offers support, which is not free.

[JS2008]

Regarding Google's lack of customer services -- I came across some stunning evidence that Google's staff do not actually read the site where customers give suggestions.
How can I prove this? If you go to the webpage for customers to give suggestions, search for the word "shoes". There are many dozens of spam selling things like shoes, clothing, toys etc. Many of these spam stretch back many months.
You'd think that if Google staff actually read the users' suggestions, they would delete the spam as they came across them.
If you look at the features Google implements in Gmails Labs, for instance, they're often the whizbang, whiz-kid ideas that no one else but Google's geniuses would think of -- rather than meat-and-potatoes functionality that ordinary users requests as features to make their life easier.
Google is hooked on a drug called "cool", and would far rather have features that make headlines - rather than produce a boring but very useful and functional product, i.e. Microsoft.
For that reason, I'm not holding my breath to see the Chrome OS.

[staleytd]

The post on Google's blog focused on "web apps." I can't help but think back to iPhone 1.0 and how much people derided and disliked Apple for saying web apps are as good as "real" applications.
Since it proved to be unsuccessful for the iPhone, what would make it acceptable for a netbook or even desktop? And it's not as if there aren't already plenty of lightweight Linux distros out there, such as Puppy.

[cv]

My guess is that Google already has much of the talent to build this operating system between the Android engineering team and the even more experienced GSA engineering team.
It's not really that far-fetched, nor is it hard to believe that Google can't figure this one out.
This is all about monopolizing search on these netbooks. By having the browser be the presentation layer, Google owns search.

[Jeffhalmos]

Google = search. At least, it used to. But now Google is like McDonalds trying to sell pizza and salads. In other words, it's extending it's brand so much that it's starting to lose the essense of what we think when we think of Google. And that means that no matter how good Google OS may be, it can only do dammage to the company in the long term because "OS" does not = search. (Did I say "long term" out loud? Sorry.)

[rab777hp]

HELL NO!!!! (to the title of the article)
GOOGLE is the future of tech, and its quite possible that google's os will be more successful than mac, imagine: linux reborn! a new era! this is just simply amazing.

[GregoriusM]

This seems to me to be nothing more than the Palm Pre on a steroid or two. It might work well on a netbook but on a full-fledged desktop? I doubt it.
Now iPhone OS on Apple's "netbook" is where it's at, or will be.
I think Google is starting to pit itself against too many of its current allies and that just might spell doom.

[whitedog]

I think people are missing the real point here. Sure, the Chrome OS is aimed at netbooks right now, but long term I think the developers are more ambitious than that. Google is already a leader in cloud computing and having an OS that integrates well with their cloud will put them ahead of the game down the road, when (and if) the cloud matures and begins to gobble up market share. If Chrome OS can establish a foothold and build a reputation in netbooks, sooner or later it will be moved to more capable platforms. Meanwhile, it will have plenty of time to develop and grow. Given the resources Google has available, I wouldn't bet against them. Are they overreaching? I think not. Rather, they are doing exactly what's needed to be where the action is, when the action is.

Google is doing what Microsoft could not, or would not, do: build an OS from scratch that meets the evolving needs of the digital marketplace. Just patching up or cutting down Windows will not get the job done - it just doesn't scale well (ie: Windows ME and Vista). Waiting for Linux to get ready for prime time has proven more or less hopeless - though I understand Chrome OS has Linux in its guts. It this is true, then, like OS X, Chrome OS is built on Unix at the core.

Unlike Windows, OS X is showing signs of scaling very well; it works splendidly on the iPhone; and Snow Leopard is shedding legacy PPC code to run leaner and faster on the Mac while, at the same time, adopting new cutting edge technologies. If and when the time comes for OS X to compete with Chrome OS, I think it will have no trouble doing so.

[spinoza2]

A Google OS has a lot of potential and would add to the competitive mix in keeping Microsoft honest. But I have to agree that Google betrays numerous signs that are not healthy: its research labs come across as being a bunch of kids playing in a sandbox, which I know is an image that Google itself likes to cultivate. The problem is that Google is not executing well, I find that most of its products (beta and otherwise) lack polish and are faulty in execution. One has the impression that Google is just throwing stuff out into the marketplace to see what sticks. Bing has shown that even Google's core service, Search, is far from perfect, and is showing numerous danger signs. Like the Altavistas and Lycos of yesteryear, Google Search results are heavily weighted to commercial and popular sites, which are often far from being the best sites to satisfy a search need. I find myself more and more going over to Yahoo and Bing because they bring better results.
A couple of years ago I, like most others, thought Google was at the pinnacle of what made a good corporation--innovative, fresh, successful, etc--but I no longer think this is true. The company is showing signs of serious direction and leadership problems, with willy nilly wackiness coming to the forefront of its image. The new OS announcement may just be another sign of a company that's out of control, as this article hints at, but then again it may be one of those Google products that "sticks".