I was stunned to read the following opinion piece in Computerworld this afternoon, it is full of inaccuracies and Microsoft loving:

Opinion: Why Chrome OS will fail — big time

Fatal flaw No. 1: The Linux foundation
First, there’s the core architecture. A derivative of Linux, the Chrome OS builds on Linus Torvald’s popular open source foundation to create a lightweight, web-oriented desktop environment. However, it also inherits that platform’s many warts, including spotty hardware compatibility.

From power management to display support, Linux has long been a minefield of buggy code and half-baked device driver implementations. Google recognises this fact and, in a page out of the Apple Macintosh playbook, has taken the draconian measure of allowing the Chrome OS to be distributed exclusively on a series of as-yet-undisclosed netbook-like devices.

It’s a move born of desperation. Google knows it can’t possibly establish a viable hardware ecosystem and still meet its self-imposed release deadline of “mid-2010″. So rather than do the hard work of courting device vendors and building certification processes, Google is taking the easy way out by micromanaging which systems will be allowed to ship with the Chrome OS and then dumping responsibility for the rest of the ecosystem onto the open source community.

This first point is complete and utter nonsense. Linux hardly has any so called warts, it is more stable than windows and is much more secure too. When was the last time you heard of a virus on Linux? How does that compare to windows?

Spotty hardware compatibility? Again hardly. In the past linux had issues with device driver support however this is more as a result of hardware manufacturers not providing information about the hardware to build the drivers, it is not a fault of the linux programmers themselves.

Google is also not allowing the OS to be distributed exclusively on a series of as-yet-undisclosed netbook-like devices. The code is open source anyone can compile and run it for any device. However in order to keep the OS small Google have said they will only be officially supporting a small number of devices. This is the same as windows not running on an ARM CPU. The difference here is with Chrome being open source people can build support into branches of it.

Google can establish a viable hardware ecosystem by mid 2010 it is easy use the existing linux device drivers. The difference is they don’t want to because they want to keep things simple and small, who can blame them for that? They are trying to be the opposite of Microsoft.

Fatal flaw No. 2: The web user interface
Then there’s the user interface. Google looks at the world through the prism of a web page. So it comes as no surprise that the primary interface to the Chrome OS is … Chrome, as in the Google browser.

Unlike a traditional OS, there’s no desktop. The “applications” running under the Chrome OS are really just interactive web pages, with the Chrome browser’s tabs serving to separate and organise them visually on the screen. Basic configuration tasks, like defining wi-fi settings, are handled via Chrome OS-hosted pop-up windows, while a simple status bar-like strip at the top of the display informs you about battery life, connectivity status, and so on.

Sadly, none of the above UI constructs is particularly original or compelling. The tabbed interface and “dockable” favourites are clearly derivative of Mac OS X and/or Windows (depending on whom you ask), as are the status icons and pull-down applications menu.

In fact, nothing about the Chrome OS UI jumps out as innovative. Rather, it simply replaces one set of metaphors (Start menu, taskbar/Dock, system tray) with a bunch of webified equivalents. And though I can certainly appreciate the advantages of doing away with those heavy legacy OS windowing layers — web content is lighterweight and easier to isolate from a security standpoint — it also serves to limit the environment’s overall utility.

The world won’t buy an inflexible OS
And that’s where I believe the Chrome OS ultimately fails. In its effort to pare the traditional OS model down to the bone, Google has thrown out the one characteristic that made Windows and, to a lesser extent, Mac OS X and full-blown Linux successful: flexibility.

Simply put, the Chrome OS is too narrow. It assumes that the world is ready to give up the traditional personal computing paradigm and live full time in the cloud. In reality, most users prefer a hybrid existence, with some of their data and applications stored locally, and others — typically the freebies, like Gmail — hosted online.

Perhaps the easiest way to put the Chrome OS into context is by comparing it to the OS it’s designed to supplant: Microsoft Windows. Like the Chrome OS, Windows lets you boot your system, surf the web, and manage your data. Unlike the Chrome OS, Windows also lets you run rich, local applications and services — and do so on the hardware of your choosing.

Don’t forget that Google’s plans for acceptable hardware to run the Chrome OS is very limiting. No hard drives or even DVD drives; only solid state drives. That may reduce power usage and speed up boot time (as if that was really an issue), but it also means you can’t run your own apps, or store and access data, when you don’t have a live internet connection. Plus, the supported laptops are only netbook-size laptops, with low-power CPUs that won’t be all that capable. Sure, Google says you can use a PC or Mac for that stuff, and Google is right: You will. Why you would want a web-only appliance as well is not so easy to answer.

Again this is all nonsense. The current build of Chrome only stores everything on the cloud. Future builds will include the ability to store content from gmail and other apps offline on the SSD – just look in the Google apps labs for these features, they are just not finished yet. Secondly, why support HDD? HDD is old technology storage is going the way of SSD and if Chrome the OS of the future then they need to support the future, not the past.

The bottom line is that while there is virtually nothing that you’ll be able to do with the Chrome OS that you won’t be able to do equally well with Windows, there are literally millions of things that you can do with Windows today that you’ll likely never be able to do with the Chrome OS.

So don’t be surprised when you start hearing about early Chrome OS adopters trying to reformat their systems with Windows 7 Starter Edition. After all, people are easily distracted, and the Chrome OS already bores me to death.

Of course you can do the same things in Windows as you can do with Chrome. That is why there is a Chrome Browser for Windows. However the key difference is the focus of the operating systems. Windows is designed to be big heavy and bulky. Chrome is designed to focus on the cloud. And of course there will be things you can do on windows that you can’t do on chrome. Google have made this clear already, Chrome is not meant to replace Windows it is designed as an alternative to Windows. And I doubt many people buying a chrome netbook would reformat to Windows. If you were going to do that you would buy a Windows netbook.

Tags: Computing, Google Chrome OS, Idiots

This entry was posted on Monday, November 23rd, 2009 at 7:25 pm and is filed under Comment and Opinion, Computers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.