• E-mail this page
• |  Print this page
• | 
• | 
• | 

GoogleOS: It's WebOS, Actually

It's finally happened. Google's dived headfirst into the desktop operating system game, just like people speculated they would. And from the sound of it, it's an OS where the main user-interface metaphor is the web. Pass the aspirin.

The first thing you should do, if you haven't already, is go read Google's official blog post on the subject. It lays out the basic ideas about Google Chrome OS -- some of which should be hinted at by the name itself. After building Chrome, they're now building an entire Linux-based OS to be a support structure for it. If it really is about the applications, stupid, then they did a smart thing by building a decently popular application first and then putting together a platform to run it on.

What Chrome sounds like, after peering a bit more closely, is Google's own take on insta-boot environments like Splashtop and Moblin. In their own words:

Speed, simplicity and security are the key aspects of Google Chrome OS. We're designing the OS to be fast and lightweight, to start up and get you onto the web in a few seconds. The user interface is minimal to stay out of your way, and most of the user experience takes place on the web. And as we did for the Google Chrome browser, we are going back to the basics and completely redesigning the underlying security architecture of the OS so that users don't have to deal with viruses, malware and security updates. It should just work.

The "on the web in a few seconds" thing was, in fact, one of the big pitches for both Splashtop and Moblin. Ditto speed and simplicity -- not just speed of booting but speed of interaction, and simplicity of display. To that end ChromeOS also, however distantly, echoes another prediction I made: that the best work done with the Linux kernel will come from having a proprietary -- or in this case at the very least, a custom -- front end.

So far, so good. But what's got me twitchy is the basic metaphor: "Google Chrome running within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel". In short, Chrome is meant to be an application delivery platform. That sounds, at least in part, like it's meant to be a delivery mechanism for Google's own services -- their mail, their document-management tools, and of course their search engine with their ads.

Obviously I don't think Google is going to force people to use their services alone, but even outside of that I'm apprehensive about the browser as an app platform. This is something I've written about many times before: whenever someone tries to place a rich application in a web browser, there's always been an irresolvable clash between the behavior of the browser and the behavior of the application in the browser. It's become less ornery with time -- and Chrome has helped in its own way, partly by having a sophisticated JavaScript engine under the hood -- but there comes a point when shoehorning an app into a web page feels a bit too much like elephants in a clown car. Why fake it when you can get the real thing with only moderately more effort?

It's tempting to use the web as an app delivery system, if only because we're doing it right now in a lot of ways. Most people think of Facebook as an application, not a web site: you don't just go read it, but you use it, interact with it. Fine. But any time an application needs more than what a browser can provide, or which can only be provided through third-party items like Flash, the metaphor collapses. (Classic example: What happens when you right-click somewhere? Do you get the browser's right-click menu? The app-in-the-browser right-click menu? The system right-click menu?)

The one thing I can't disagree with is the pronouncement that "it should just work".  If Google can find a way to expand the browser metaphor so that these things are no longer issues, that's great, but from everything I've seen it means programming headaches at least as bad as the ones faced by people porting regular desktop applications across platforms.

What's also clear is that Google doesn't seem to think this will be a Windows challenger, at least immediately and directly. It's a low-end contender, something for people who have modest needs or don't require a full-blown computer on the go -- their own words, "for people who spend most of their time on the web". It's splendid that ChromeOS s going to be an open system -- I can't argue with that part at all -- but if it amounts to Google's argument that the PC needs to become the Web, I reserve the right to be skeptical.

InformationWeek Analytics has published an independent analysis of the next-generation Web applications. Download the report here (registration required).

Follow me and the rest of InformationWeek on Twitter.

« Why Google's Chrome OS Doesn't Surprise Me One Bit | Main | T-Mobile Talks Up Personalization Of The myTouch 3G »