A lot of buzz kicked up over the announcement of Google Chrome OS last night. In short, Google wants to build a a windowing system on top of Linux that is optimized for running web-based apps (read: Google Apps). The target is netbook devices, which further distinguishes this from Windows, Mac OS X and Linux distributions such as Ubuntu that provide an environment historically focused on local data storage and native applications.
Reactionaries are starting to predict the end of Microsoft. How many times have we heard that one? I don’t see many web-based apps replacing the hardware-accelerated 3D gaming market, for example. Needless to say, this is interesting and it at least has the potential, alongside the evolution of modern smart phones, to change the face of IT. The target seems to be business users. A serious “instant boot,” backup-free, ultra-portable operating system designed for email, chat, web browsing, document authoring, presentations and spread sheets for mobile professionals? Sound like you? Throw in some image editing (Photoshop Express anyone?) and you just described 90% of a lot of our working days.
Of course, there’s also still that looming regulatory, security and privacy issue of business data stored in the cloud to figure out. But, we’ll worry about that tomorrow. I’m going to keep an eye on this because I’m always interested to see how Trading Grid Online works in new browser offerings. A web-based, hosted, more native-feeling supply chain appliance is an attractive proposition.