By Bethsheba Achitsa
Published July 16, 2009
Society is facing a future in which technologies of computation will play an increasingly important role, all the complex facets of this development suggests that computers are here to stay. And there is an interesting war that is building up from a far in the backyards of the virtual space. With Google’s popularity in providing a large percentage of the world’s population with search engines, the company has recently expressed its intention to create operating systems, an area where Microsoft has dominated for a very long time.
On July 7, 2009, on its official blog, Google announced this new intention which elicited mixed reactions among people.
“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,” read the message that evoked a strongly divided opinion among the people, with many regarding Chrome OS as a me-too product that might turn out to be vaporware. Some even think that this announcement was partly made to land a punch on Microsoft as it prepares for the launch of Windows 7 and to encourage the open-source community to get involved.
As well as searching with Google, users can use its software to send e-mails, to write documents and spreadsheets using Google Apps, or to browse the web using Chrome. In the mobile world, Google’s Android ‘is jostling for users’ attention with windows being seen by many as one of the many operating systems.
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Google Chrome OS is an open source, lightweight operating system that will initially be targeted at netbooks with speed, simplicity and security being the key aspects of Chrome OS. These features according to Google will enable users to start up and get them onto the web in a few seconds. Google Chrome OS will run on both x86 as well as ARM chips.
But with the new operating system being created for people who spend most of their time on the web, many are able to agree with the critics that Chrome OS will not does not worry Microsoft as very few people are connected to the internet most of the time. How easy will it be to open and work on files and save if not connected to the internet and can one choose not to store them in the Google cloud?
While Google is attempting to re-think what operating systems should be, Microsoft will not give them adequate time to think about Operating Systems, as it has also shown an interest in developing search engines.
Google’s move could be a step towards ending the monopoly that Windows has, to end this maybe the competitor should be able to provide more PCs with no OS. With other products such as Linpus, Ubuntu, Linux and many others trying to compete with windows for many years, it is clear that Chrome OS and Windows aren’t really direct competitors. For Google to come up with something substantial, it means that they have to have been working on the project for a long time, otherwise their product brings to mind cheap Personal Computers.
