OS Wars: Google vs. Goliath
Posted: July 17, 2009
Google Chrome and Microsoft Windows
By Ned Smith
If there were a seismograph to measure epochal events in the world of under-the-hood digital technology, its needle would have been buried on July 7 when Google unveiled its latest project, Google Chrome OS, an open source, lightweight operating system that will be initially targeting netbooks. In the announcement, made on the company’s official blog, Google says the new OS will be available in the second half of 2010.
In quick order, a frisson of excitement and anticipation shot through the tech world as the news jumped the firewall that frequently insulates the two cultures and captured the attention of the mainstream media. The New York Times neatly encapsulated the hopes and fears of many when it chimed in on its editorial page with “Battle of the Behemoths,” opining, “There is a kind of bloodthirsty thrill in learning that Google plans to develop a personal computer operating system to compete with Microsoft Windows.” Such an over-the-top reaction is enough to make the tiff between Voldemort and Harry Potter look like a schoolyard dustup.
Back on earth, the response in the software community was more modulated, although equally impassioned. Even Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, no stranger to inflammatory rhetoric, couldn’t muster much more than,”Who knows what this thing is?” when queried about Chrome by Reuters at a conference for technology partners in New Orleans. Downplaying the intense competition between the two digital giants, he shrugged off the Chrome announcement. “I don’t know if they can’t make up their mind over there, but the last time I checked, you don’t need two client operating systems,” he says, referring to Google’s previously announced Android system for mobile devices.
Other software developers, however, were sanguine about what Chrome means for them and the future. “The Chrome OS is fantastic news for developers, end users and companies,” says Michael de la Maza, technical fellow at Dynamics Research, an Andover, Mass., provider of technology management services and solutions for government. “With the exception of Microsoft, everyone should be jumping for joy. The Chrome browser hit the ball out of the park when it comes to running web apps; the Chrome OS will hit the ball out of the park when it comes to maximizing the Internet experience.”
Chrome is a major paradigm shift, according to Jari Ala-Ruona, CEO of Movial, a provider of IP communications client software and Mobile Linux solutions based in Finland. “Google’s Chrome OS is an operating system designed for the Internet era,” he says. “Chrome will support applications that are somewhere between a native and a web app. It will enable the mashing up of device data to a web app like Google Maps. It also means that to be a desktop software developer all you will need to know is how to make a website. With Google’s treasury, this could well mean the beginning of the end for the Fat OS paradigm.”
Because Chrome is based on the Linux kernel, the open source community is greeting it with open arms. “For Linux, it means this is yet another entry, Ala-Ruona says. “This could just be the very thing Linux has needed to cross the chasm on desktop environments.”
While some commentators are predicting that the launch of the Chrome OS could be a tipping point for a wholesale movement to web-based applications, Richard Rabins, CEO and co-founder of Alpha Software, a developer of database software in Burlington, Mass., believes the trend to web apps was already well under way before the Chrome announcement. “At the end of the day,” he says, “I think there are fundamental forces that are actually being driven by customers toward web applications and web applications that are fast and rich. Users don’t care how it’s being done. They have seen what is possible with a web application. Developers have to respond to this. As a software developer we’ve had an epiphany on this. There’s a seismic shift that’s pending, but I think it’s really gathering strength now. You can finally build serious applications that are exclusively browser-based that perform with the richness and smoothness of desktop apps.”
As a developer, Rabins welcomes Chrome. “The availability of an OS that says, ‘Look, we live in the browser. And all of our work is done in a browser,’ is a great idea,” he says. “I’m not saying it’s going to completely replace desktop apps. There are still apps where you’re going to want to use a desktop. But for custom applications that are driven by a database, we really don’t see the desktop as where it’s at. We see the browser is where it’s at. Technically and where the market is now, I think the world is absolutely ready for this. The factor that is going to help drive its success is that Google has an incredible brand. If another company tried to pull this off, I think there would be a lot of questions, not technically, but reputation-wise and credibility-wise.”
As welcome as Chrome may be, though, Rabins doesn’t believe that its introduction will bring Redmond to its knees. “This doesn’t by any means spell the end of Microsoft,” he says. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they were working on a direct competitor for a browser-based operating system. One way or the other, whether it’s Google or Microsoft, consumers are going to end up with a choice when they go to buy computers of picking one with a heavy-duty operating system like Windows 7 or a lightweight system like Chrome. And I’m not sure it’s even going to be that tough a choice. The traditional Windows operating system, because it tried to do so much, became a bloated beast.”
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