Bhavsar Kshatriya Samaj

Since past few days there has been lots of gossip in the air regarding the announcement of the new Google Operating System A.K.A. Chrome OS.

What is this Chrome OS?

Is it a derivative of yet another Linux Distro?

Is it a yet another marketing campaign of Google against its well known rivals?

Or Is it a new experiment to drive user traffic after the success of Gmail, Orkut, Google Earth and other web tools?

Whatever the reason may be, it appears to be yet another warship strategy of Google that announces “Try to stop me if you can!”

This had indeed raised lots of questions, curiosity and may be even a wave of insecurity to some existing OS developers, especially when its claimed to be FOSS (Free Open Source Software) release.

As for end user world, there has been lots of gossiping and rumoring regarding Chrome OS. Yet very few have set their journey for hunting down facts.

Insight

Google has already released its FOSS Mobile OS named Andriod, and by introducing Google Chrome OS, its now targeting Notebooks (errrrrr… Netbooks).

Google being a Search Engine and Online Advertising giant, has a lion’s share of revenue just from advertisements. Now investing in development of a FOSS Linux based Operating System for the wide number of masses will naturally mean no financial returns (until and unless that OS is embedded with Adsense).

When we speak about Netbooks (Notebook enabled with a 24 hrs Internet connection), thats what Google will benefit from on contrary to a traditional Notebook that goes online for fraction of minutes and remain offline for rest of its day.

To Profit or Non Profit for Google?

As explained earlier, Google is primarily targeting Netbook market for its OS, or else there’s no way where Google can recover its expenditures.

How?

Google needs to earn and feed its employees working day and night on the development of Chrome OS. A notebook or desktop that lacks Internet connection is of no good use for Google to run its OS on to, because no Internet connection means no access to Adsense.

Success rate?

If Google really aims at heavy Internet users, as it claims on its Official Google Blog:

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/introducing-google-chrome-os.html then it will has again a set of challenges ahead for facilitating the users who are not net savvy. General desktop users who use an Operating system for office automation, development, financial management, etc. would rather be reluctant to switch over to Chrome OS which forces them to use Browser instead of application window,or else how will the advertisements be shown.

Secondly does this mean Users be forced to use their computers like a Television where they are shown ads in all ways? Certainly not. For those who are keen to get their work done offline without the need of continual Internet connection, Chrome OS is sure to fall on face!

Apart from that, in countries like India, where using Internet connection is like conserving water in desert area, its really a large warfare for Web dependent OS to survive. It will be like Fish without water.

Measures Google will need to take in order to survive this situation?

If Internet connection is a real need of Chrome OS to function in Internet deficient areas, then Google has to again shell out extra currency to subsidize or tie up with local ISP so as to facilitate inexpensive 24 hours Internet connection. May be who knows, Google will even plan to come up with its own ISP in future. But one thing for sure, even Google will need to work hard on these area so as to lure every OS user towards Chrome OS.

Is that the only Challenge?

Internet connection is just a small piece of the huge Cake of challenges set forth for Google. Other challenges include:

• Hardware Compatibility: This is the area where the existing OS developers are still struggling. Every day a new piece of hardware is release in the market and OS developers need to certify those drivers to work on their OS. Although Google has good experience in customizing Linux as it is using customized versions of some well known distros, and have even been reported of releasing patches to Canonical for Ubuntu, they won’t find it that hard to integrate existing Hardware drivers from such distros int its own.

• Security: Google claims to have been working on redesigning the security architecture for its OS. While it can be true, how can it assure the blockage of malware, through the web advertising network? Since Google may not be able to resist its temptation to embed Adsense on to Chrome OS. However its true that we can trust Google’s Adsense for security, what about Third Party Ads that Adsense publishers may integrate into their Adsense account?

• Third Party Applications: Now here’s the real question. What applications does Google plan to support on Chrome OS. Will it allow to run third party applications apart from some of their readily available applications that can be easily ported on to the Desktop are:

  • GMail Client

  • GTalk Messenger

  • Google Docs (based on OpenOffice.org)

  • Picasa Web Album Client

  • Google Earth

  • And loads of applications from Google Pack http://pack.google.com/intl/en/pack_installer.html

This is merely a small list of challenges, there are to be more.

How can Google recover revenues from Chrome OS?

The foremost and the readily available option is Web Advertisements. However, for that it will require uninterrupted Internet connection.

The other modes of revenue can be:

1. Paid Support Subscription Services: Paid subscription is one way where many FOSS oriented Operation System developers recover their revenue. Users who need commercial support can pay to the manufacturing company for technical support.

2. Adfree Applications: Google can go one step ahead by charging customers for removing Adsense advertisements from their installed OS, similar to how they have worked out on Google Apps Standard and Business Edition.

3. Adsync for Adsense: Probably this is what they will name their offline Adsense client, if ever they plan to seek it as a solution to display advertisements on those systems that don’t have uninterrupted Internet connection for downloading advertisements from the web and displaying it while the user is working offline. Google can charge the advertisers based on the statistics generated from the client systems. Again this concept is called as Adware.

4. Cloud Computing: Although this term can be new for some, it refers to an architecture where a centralized web server acts as a document server. Cloud here refers to Internet as its depicted in block diagrams. Google has been doing it as a part of Google Apps. Chrome OS can be designed in such a manner that it can browse Google Apps server similar to browsing LAN Document Server and in turn charge the clients for this service (in the way similar to ubuntuone.com)

So who can be ideal Audiences for Chrome OS?

Anyone who’s major task is to be online and need to access web for their work done such as research, market survey, client support, etc. Corporates who rely on Google Apps Business Edition for cloud computing.

Call Centres can make a good use of Chrome OS as their major task involves being online and interacting with clients for resolving their issues. As Google already has good hold over Web Based communications, it can enhance Chrome OS for rich quality VOIP service.

Conclusion

Well its still a long way to go. Either this way or other, its after all the need of the users that make them decide which Operating System suits them better.