...Google was primarily enthralled in a battle with Microsoft...
Okay, since this is the second time I've seen this particular word misused on AI, it's now fair to quote the Spaniard: "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
(I believe "embroiled" is the word you were looking for... both times)
You are absolutely right. Until you can see that a simple OS for apps and web use is completely different in design and consumer focus than a high-end consumer OS then there is nothing to discuss.
PS: There are already SDKs for making the Apps Google will use.
Your answer is puzzling. Who is to say what is a "high end consumer OS" and what is something else? Do we even know what Chrome is going to be, since it really doesn't actually exist yet?
FWIW, Apple did provide a method for developing browser-based software for the iPhone before the current SDK. I don't know whether technically it was an SDK, but it was a method. Not that any technical people were satisfied with such a limited approach.
Quote:
Originally Posted by vinea
Because Google has the browser extensions to make it work as solipsism mentioned. Apple didn't have the same extension capability despite full control of the platform because that's not one of their core competencies.
Or because it was an interim solution. The point I'd make is that the SDK in the end is the more complete development solution. Is that not right?
...I clearly remember the fury unleashed at Apple when that was their initial approach to application development on the iPhone platform, the general feeling being that application development for the iPhone would never go anywhere that way. It seems Google is being cut a lot of slack in this department. I am curious to know why. Maybe someone who will confess to believing that browser-based applications on the iPhone = fail, but browser-based applications on Chrome = success, can explain this difference.
John Gruber has an interesting point about this on Daring Fireball.
[Nick Mediati at PC World] was right that not just developers but users wanted native third party apps for the iPhone. The difference from what Google is promising with Chrome, however, is that web apps will be the native apps on the system. Presumably all of the default applications from Google itself will themselves be the Google web apps we already know. It?s an eating-your-own-dog-food issue. What irked about Apple?s endorsement of iPhone-optimized web apps as a ?really sweet solution? was that, of course, none of the iPhone?s built-in apps were web apps. They were all written in Objective-C with Cocoa Touch. Apple?s own iPhone apps set a high bar for user experience ? a height that could not (and still can?t) be reached with web apps running in MobileSafari.
Schmidt will have to recuse himself from too many board meetings now, I don't think it makes sense to leave him on the Board. Perhaps he can instead become a Special Advisor or something if he's that cozy with Apple.
I find the snide comments about Al Gore childish. He's a very smart man and a good person, he doesn't deserve the smears that NeoCons/Republicans are fond of repeating over and over. Give it a rest.
The point I'd make is that the SDK in the end is the more complete development solution. Is that not right?
Well, the point that I didn't make clearly is that Google's strengths lay in web apps and their corporate strategy is to make web service based computing ubiquitous while Apple's strengths lay in operating systems.
Apple's web app was an interim solution as you state but they didn't add any real significant capability for advancing web app development. So it was considered a failure...especially in comparison to Apple's own native apps.
Google will, I believe, make web apps 1st class citizens by both making it the only citizen and by improving the ability of web app developers to create real rich internet applications as opposed to so-so ones using plain vanilla Ajax available to iPhone web app devs. Hence the laundry list of web technologies that Google has spent a lot of money developing where Apple has not.
This is why (some) folks think Google's Chrome OS web development environment is cool while Apple's was a an epic fail. Google has been working a long time to make web apps not suck and to launch a web based OS today means they think they are at least at the beta stage of web apps not sucking.
Which given Google, could last a few years...but it will likely also be as usable as Gmail was. Google wave is also really cool...I really wish I had gone to Google IO this year...and not just for the free phone.
Google with Chrome is going to pinch Microsoft if they don't have a OS to go on these ultra thin low power netbooks. So far as I can see, Windows 7 isn't going to do it.
Actually, unlike Wistful, virtually all netbooks apparently run Win 7 at least as fast as XP (source: This Week in Tech podcast)
The trickier issue is price. MS has been selling XP for netbooks for $15 - but charging the same price for Win 7 on a notebook and netbook would raise Win netbooks' prices by (guestimate) $40-65. So if Chrome is free to manufacturers (supported by AdSense), they may be motivated to sell this latest iteration of "thin-client computing" (a model - where the programs are run from accessing a server) which has failed in at least four earlier eras of computing).
Still, it's difficult to see anyone who actually computes (not just surfs) who doesn't need to run at least one or two Win or OS X apps.
Quote:
PS: and Al Gore is on the board because he has money and connections, not that he could contribute anything beneficial in my opinion.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Silverflyer
Al Gore is on the board of Apple for his Green Cred, thats all.
Dude, since coming "on board," tho' he's too modest to claim the credit, he invented the iPhone, kicked asses to upgrade Apple TV, and is fighting the good fight to make sure the Tom-Tom iPhone app will only show (greener) public transit routes.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Quadra 610
Highly doubtful that Google's Chrome OS will target Apple customers.
...before 2012 at least... ....the tech world evolves. And don't forget Android - giving them an equivalency to Apple's OS X and OS X Mobile. If Google really executes and persists, heads will eventually roll everywhere.
Quote:
Originally Posted by solipsism
I think that Chrome OS will make it's biggest mark in emerging markets once it gets off the ground.
Likely true 'dat. And it won't hurt them, because it's not very worthwhile to pirate a "free" OS.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dr Millmoss
One thing of interest I've noted in this discussion is the apparently sanguine attitude towards browser-based applications. I clearly remember the fury unleashed at Apple when that was their initial approach to application development on the iPhone platform, the general feeling being that application development for the iPhone would never go anywhere that way. It seems Google is being cut a lot of slack in this department. I am curious to know why. Maybe someone who will confess to believing that browser-based applications on the iPhone = fail, but browser-based applications on Chrome = success, can explain this difference.
1. The press likes Google.
2. Google is a highly innovative, well-run company with a strong track record.
3. Word sucks (says this long-time and still Word Perfect fan), but Google Docs is incredibly primitive in many ways in comparison to Word (and the constantly annoying latency issues of server-client computing exist as they always have - and saving as a Word Doc is not the same as saving the same keystrokes in Word), so I only use Gdocs when I know I need to access the doc from another or other computer(s), or for collaborative editing.
On the other hand, I've tried both browser-based and program-based comics collection management software. The daily updating auto values and other features make the web-based solution superior in this case.
And web-apps and broadband speed are still in their infancy. Stay tuned. For a decade. The landscape will change (and in ways far beyond this discussion).
Although Apple and Google now collaborate and compete, their competing products rarely target the same customers. In the case of both web browsers and mobile software, Google aims its offerings at battling the encroachment of Microsoft into its advertising business, with the Google Chrome browser positioned to replace Internet Explorer and the Android phone platform aimed directly at Microsoft's Windows Mobile efforts.
Sorry for being thick but how can anyone claim that Apple and Google arn't targeting the same customers. I mean Chrome and Safari are basically the same browser even down to some of the icons, how can anyone claim there not both targeting anyone who uses the web? There isn't anything on either ones web page to say who they are targeting.
The same with the Android and iPhone. Apple has ad's targeting the phone at enterprise and consumers, who's left? The Android ad's didn't seem to suggest they went targeting anyone wanting a phone either.
How could anyone target Microsoft's business and not every other company in the market? If they both are though, isn't that exactly what isn't allowed, 2 companies operating in the same marketing, producing products that should compete but deliberately work together rather than compete with each other.
The writing is on the wall on this one - between overlapping forays into tablet/netbook computing and mobile computing, and competing developer platform plays, divergent value chain strategies (disrupt/commoditize versus integrate/distinguish) and each company's unrelenting mammoth ambitions to dominate media, commerce and the e-wallet - these "friends" feel destined to become frienemies, something that I blogged about in:
All of that said, neither company has proven to care one whit about conventional thinking, so writing on the wall, notwithstanding, the end game is anything but clear.
If interested, check out the above post, as well as THIS ONE evaluating the tablet computing space.
[...] This is why (some) folks think Google's Chrome OS web development environment is cool while Apple's was a an epic fail.
The iPhone is hardly an epic failure. If you'll recall, Apple pushed hard to have the iPhone accepted as a web-based platform, but people (and developers) demanded more: native apps. The same will be true of Chrome OS. The "failure" with the iPhone was that browser standards, browser software, the native SDK and App Store weren't ready for the original iPhone. Google is already off to a bad start, by emphasizing a strictly web-based environment, when we know that won't meet with more than marginal success. Meanwhile Apple already has more than a year's experience melding the web with native apps and security on the iPhone, not to mention Apple's leadership role in developing WebKit.
If you really think about it they are in a race to conquer the U-phone and the U-laptop of the world. 10 years from now one of the 3 will prevail. Google knows searching on the Internet does not a company make. Microsoft knows their money monopoly is mortally wounded with their ever worsening software. Apple knows it is the future with its beautiful and easy to use approach. But Microsoft has the money, Google the valuation and desperation, and Apple the need to make money from low margin hardware.
GWT + Ajax + HTML5 is supposed to impress me? I can go list half a dozen projects on Apache.com that do far more. Hell, WebObjects does far more. It did far more especially when it was ObjC/Cocoa based.
The iPhone is hardly an epic failure. If you'll recall, Apple pushed hard to have the iPhone accepted as a web-based platform, but people (and developers) demanded more: native apps. The same will be true of Chrome OS. The "failure" with the iPhone was that browser standards, browser software, the native SDK and App Store weren't ready for the original iPhone. Google is already off to a bad start, by emphasizing a strictly web-based environment, when we know that won't meet with more than marginal success. Meanwhile Apple already has more than a year's experience melding the web with native apps and security on the iPhone, not to mention Apple's leadership role in developing WebKit.
That's the important point. Mobile Safari was a decent enough browser but all it could do was Ajax which wasn't enough for RIA.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mdriftmeyer
GWT + Ajax + HTML5 is supposed to impress me? I can go list half a dozen projects on Apache.com that do far more. Hell, WebObjects does far more. It did far more especially when it was ObjC/Cocoa based.
Sorry, but Google's only advantage is their data.
Then you simply aren't paying attention. Try Google Wave. Try Google O3D (impressive demos). Look at NaCl (Native Client for x86 code for web apps. Heck, they ported a H.264 encoder (11 KSLOC) to NaCL by chaging 20 lines and modifying the makefile. They have Quake running in NaCl.
O3D and NaCl are key to gaming and a better Google Apps suite...which is important for netbook acceptance. ChromeOS will kill SplashTop and Moblin instant ons along with using any linux distro on netbooks for anyone but geeks.
It'll also have the chance to take far more share from Win7 than Linux ever did and it plays in a UI environment where the competition is not OSX but Win7 and Gnome.
And these games and apps will run just fine in Win7, OSX and Linux.
Just as OSX is Unix done right...ChromeOS will likely be Linux done right.
True probably, but the press likes Google in the way the press liked Microsoft for a long time. They assumed everything they touched would succeed, even when it was apparent that they weren't so much succeeding as overwhelming or outlasting their competitors. This is the media's general assumption about Google today. The parallels are disquieting.
Quote:
2. Google is a highly innovative, well-run company with a strong track record.
This I question. I think Google has so far been essentially a one-trick pony. Like Microsoft, it's a good and profitable one trick, but still just one trick. As you acknowledge, many of their other projects seem unfinished, probably because they are unfinished, and their entire approach seems unfocused. Not the sign of a well run company, IMO.
This I question. I think Google has so far been essentially a one-trick pony. Like Microsoft, it's a good and profitable one trick, but still just one trick. As you acknowledge, many of their other projects seem unfinished, probably because they are unfinished, and their entire approach seems unfocused. Not the sign of a well run company, IMO.
in one sense you are right; Google is a "one-trick pony" since everything they do revolves around ads. They are an advertising company that can supply free services because of these ad supported services. ChromeOS will not change that. In fact, it will prop it up since use of ChromeOS using the Chrome browser will keep Google from paying Mozilla, Apple and other companies from making a dime from the search bar.
PS: Despite being open source I wonder if the EU will have a problem with this tie in. I suppose Google will have to allow the option for other search engines.
in one sense you are right; Google is a "one-trick pony" since everything they do revolves around ads. They are an advertising company that can supply free services because of these ad supported services. ChromeOS will not change that. In fact, it will prop it up since use of ChromeOS using the Chrome browser will keep Google from paying Mozilla, Apple and other companies from making a dime from the search bar.
This is where the parallels to Microsoft become even more startling. Practically everything Microsoft does revolves around Windows, at least anything they've accomplished to any measure of success in the last 15 years. Microsoft has been all about leveraging their Windows dominance; where they can't do that, they've floundered. Google is trying to do the same thing with their massive hegemony over online advertising.
in one sense you are right; Google is a "one-trick pony" since everything they do revolves around ads. They are an advertising company that can supply free services because of these ad supported services. ChromeOS will not change that. In fact, it will prop it up since use of ChromeOS using the Chrome browser will keep Google from paying Mozilla, Apple and other companies from making a dime from the search bar.
Actually it is changing. There is a professional version of Google Apps that is ad free. Search and ads is where Google made all its money but its core strength is providing web services. A strength it has to leverage to move forward beyond adsense revenue.
Besides, paying Mozilla is cheap given the eyeballs. How much Google pays Apple no one seems to know but it hardly matters to Apple. It's not like they're likely to switch to Bing.
Comments
...Google was primarily enthralled in a battle with Microsoft...
Okay, since this is the second time I've seen this particular word misused on AI, it's now fair to quote the Spaniard: "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
(I believe "embroiled" is the word you were looking for... both times)
You are absolutely right. Until you can see that a simple OS for apps and web use is completely different in design and consumer focus than a high-end consumer OS then there is nothing to discuss.
PS: There are already SDKs for making the Apps Google will use.
Your answer is puzzling. Who is to say what is a "high end consumer OS" and what is something else? Do we even know what Chrome is going to be, since it really doesn't actually exist yet?
FWIW, Apple did provide a method for developing browser-based software for the iPhone before the current SDK. I don't know whether technically it was an SDK, but it was a method. Not that any technical people were satisfied with such a limited approach.
Because Google has the browser extensions to make it work as solipsism mentioned. Apple didn't have the same extension capability despite full control of the platform because that's not one of their core competencies.
Or because it was an interim solution. The point I'd make is that the SDK in the end is the more complete development solution. Is that not right?
...I clearly remember the fury unleashed at Apple when that was their initial approach to application development on the iPhone platform, the general feeling being that application development for the iPhone would never go anywhere that way. It seems Google is being cut a lot of slack in this department. I am curious to know why. Maybe someone who will confess to believing that browser-based applications on the iPhone = fail, but browser-based applications on Chrome = success, can explain this difference.
John Gruber has an interesting point about this on Daring Fireball.
[Nick Mediati at PC World] was right that not just developers but users wanted native third party apps for the iPhone. The difference from what Google is promising with Chrome, however, is that web apps will be the native apps on the system. Presumably all of the default applications from Google itself will themselves be the Google web apps we already know. It?s an eating-your-own-dog-food issue. What irked about Apple?s endorsement of iPhone-optimized web apps as a ?really sweet solution? was that, of course, none of the iPhone?s built-in apps were web apps. They were all written in Objective-C with Cocoa Touch. Apple?s own iPhone apps set a high bar for user experience ? a height that could not (and still can?t) be reached with web apps running in MobileSafari.
I find the snide comments about Al Gore childish. He's a very smart man and a good person, he doesn't deserve the smears that NeoCons/Republicans are fond of repeating over and over. Give it a rest.
The point I'd make is that the SDK in the end is the more complete development solution. Is that not right?
Well, the point that I didn't make clearly is that Google's strengths lay in web apps and their corporate strategy is to make web service based computing ubiquitous while Apple's strengths lay in operating systems.
Apple's web app was an interim solution as you state but they didn't add any real significant capability for advancing web app development. So it was considered a failure...especially in comparison to Apple's own native apps.
Google will, I believe, make web apps 1st class citizens by both making it the only citizen and by improving the ability of web app developers to create real rich internet applications as opposed to so-so ones using plain vanilla Ajax available to iPhone web app devs. Hence the laundry list of web technologies that Google has spent a lot of money developing where Apple has not.
This is why (some) folks think Google's Chrome OS web development environment is cool while Apple's was a an epic fail. Google has been working a long time to make web apps not suck and to launch a web based OS today means they think they are at least at the beta stage of web apps not sucking.
Which given Google, could last a few years...but it will likely also be as usable as Gmail was. Google wave is also really cool...I really wish I had gone to Google IO this year...and not just for the free phone.
You'd think Businessweek was Mother Jones
Yeah, you'd think that.
At some point, the attempt to have a serious conversation becomes pointless. This is one of those points!
Cheers.
PS: and Al Gore is on the board because he has money and connections, not that he could contribute anything beneficial in my opinion.
He did ask Apple to keep the bouncing dock icons.
Google with Chrome is going to pinch Microsoft if they don't have a OS to go on these ultra thin low power netbooks. So far as I can see, Windows 7 isn't going to do it.
Actually, unlike Wistful, virtually all netbooks apparently run Win 7 at least as fast as XP (source: This Week in Tech podcast)
The trickier issue is price. MS has been selling XP for netbooks for $15 - but charging the same price for Win 7 on a notebook and netbook would raise Win netbooks' prices by (guestimate) $40-65. So if Chrome is free to manufacturers (supported by AdSense), they may be motivated to sell this latest iteration of "thin-client computing" (a model - where the programs are run from accessing a server) which has failed in at least four earlier eras of computing).
Still, it's difficult to see anyone who actually computes (not just surfs) who doesn't need to run at least one or two Win or OS X apps.
PS: and Al Gore is on the board because he has money and connections, not that he could contribute anything beneficial in my opinion.
Al Gore is on the board of Apple for his Green Cred, thats all.
Dude, since coming "on board," tho' he's too modest to claim the credit, he invented the iPhone, kicked asses to upgrade Apple TV, and is fighting the good fight to make sure the Tom-Tom iPhone app will only show (greener) public transit routes.
Highly doubtful that Google's Chrome OS will target Apple customers.
...before 2012 at least... ....the tech world evolves. And don't forget Android - giving them an equivalency to Apple's OS X and OS X Mobile. If Google really executes and persists, heads will eventually roll everywhere.
I think that Chrome OS will make it's biggest mark in emerging markets once it gets off the ground.
Likely true 'dat. And it won't hurt them, because it's not very worthwhile to pirate a "free" OS.
One thing of interest I've noted in this discussion is the apparently sanguine attitude towards browser-based applications. I clearly remember the fury unleashed at Apple when that was their initial approach to application development on the iPhone platform, the general feeling being that application development for the iPhone would never go anywhere that way. It seems Google is being cut a lot of slack in this department. I am curious to know why. Maybe someone who will confess to believing that browser-based applications on the iPhone = fail, but browser-based applications on Chrome = success, can explain this difference.
1. The press likes Google.
2. Google is a highly innovative, well-run company with a strong track record.
3. Word sucks (says this long-time and still Word Perfect fan), but Google Docs is incredibly primitive in many ways in comparison to Word (and the constantly annoying latency issues of server-client computing exist as they always have - and saving as a Word Doc is not the same as saving the same keystrokes in Word), so I only use Gdocs when I know I need to access the doc from another or other computer(s), or for collaborative editing.
On the other hand, I've tried both browser-based and program-based comics collection management software. The daily updating auto values and other features make the web-based solution superior in this case.
And web-apps and broadband speed are still in their infancy. Stay tuned. For a decade. The landscape will change (and in ways far beyond this discussion).
Here's one fairly insightful article on this matter: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-...ml?tag=nl.e404
Although Apple and Google now collaborate and compete, their competing products rarely target the same customers. In the case of both web browsers and mobile software, Google aims its offerings at battling the encroachment of Microsoft into its advertising business, with the Google Chrome browser positioned to replace Internet Explorer and the Android phone platform aimed directly at Microsoft's Windows Mobile efforts.
[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ]
Sorry for being thick but how can anyone claim that Apple and Google arn't targeting the same customers. I mean Chrome and Safari are basically the same browser even down to some of the icons, how can anyone claim there not both targeting anyone who uses the web? There isn't anything on either ones web page to say who they are targeting.
The same with the Android and iPhone. Apple has ad's targeting the phone at enterprise and consumers, who's left? The Android ad's didn't seem to suggest they went targeting anyone wanting a phone either.
How could anyone target Microsoft's business and not every other company in the market? If they both are though, isn't that exactly what isn't allowed, 2 companies operating in the same marketing, producing products that should compete but deliberately work together rather than compete with each other.
Whatever, dude. Al Gore invented the internet.
That and with all the personalities at Apple, they had to bring in someone without one for balance.
The Chess Masters: Apple versus Google
http://thenetworkgarden.com/weblog/2...ess-maste.html
All of that said, neither company has proven to care one whit about conventional thinking, so writing on the wall, notwithstanding, the end game is anything but clear.
If interested, check out the above post, as well as THIS ONE evaluating the tablet computing space.
Cheers,
Mark
That and with all the personalities at Apple, they had to bring in someone without one for balance.
Would you prefer that Apple put Dick Cheney or Sarah Palin on the board?
[...] This is why (some) folks think Google's Chrome OS web development environment is cool while Apple's was a an epic fail.
The iPhone is hardly an epic failure. If you'll recall, Apple pushed hard to have the iPhone accepted as a web-based platform, but people (and developers) demanded more: native apps. The same will be true of Chrome OS. The "failure" with the iPhone was that browser standards, browser software, the native SDK and App Store weren't ready for the original iPhone. Google is already off to a bad start, by emphasizing a strictly web-based environment, when we know that won't meet with more than marginal success. Meanwhile Apple already has more than a year's experience melding the web with native apps and security on the iPhone, not to mention Apple's leadership role in developing WebKit.
Sorry, but Google's only advantage is their data.
The iPhone is hardly an epic failure. If you'll recall, Apple pushed hard to have the iPhone accepted as a web-based platform, but people (and developers) demanded more: native apps. The same will be true of Chrome OS. The "failure" with the iPhone was that browser standards, browser software, the native SDK and App Store weren't ready for the original iPhone. Google is already off to a bad start, by emphasizing a strictly web-based environment, when we know that won't meet with more than marginal success. Meanwhile Apple already has more than a year's experience melding the web with native apps and security on the iPhone, not to mention Apple's leadership role in developing WebKit.
That's the important point. Mobile Safari was a decent enough browser but all it could do was Ajax which wasn't enough for RIA.
GWT + Ajax + HTML5 is supposed to impress me? I can go list half a dozen projects on Apache.com that do far more. Hell, WebObjects does far more. It did far more especially when it was ObjC/Cocoa based.
Sorry, but Google's only advantage is their data.
Then you simply aren't paying attention. Try Google Wave. Try Google O3D (impressive demos). Look at NaCl (Native Client for x86 code for web apps. Heck, they ported a H.264 encoder (11 KSLOC) to NaCL by chaging 20 lines and modifying the makefile. They have Quake running in NaCl.
Here is Hello World in NaCl:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <nacl/nacl_srpc.h>
/* Return a clever string. */
int HelloWorld(NaClAppArg **in_args, NaClAppArg **out_args) {
/* Strdup must be used because the SRPC layer frees the string passed to it. */
out_args[0]->u.sval = strdup("hello, world.");
return RPC_OK;
}
/* Export the method as taking no arguments and returning one integer. */
NACL_SRPC_METHOD("helloworld::s", HelloWorld);
<embed id="pluginobj" type="application/x-nacl-srpc"
width="0" height="0" xsrc="srpc_hw.nexe" mce_src="srpc_hw.nexe" />
// helloworld is invoked when its button is pressed.
function helloworld() {
try {
alert(document.getElementById('pluginobj').hellowo rld());
} catch(e) {
alert(e);
}
}
As Steve would say...boom.
O3D and NaCl are key to gaming and a better Google Apps suite...which is important for netbook acceptance. ChromeOS will kill SplashTop and Moblin instant ons along with using any linux distro on netbooks for anyone but geeks.
It'll also have the chance to take far more share from Win7 than Linux ever did and it plays in a UI environment where the competition is not OSX but Win7 and Gnome.
And these games and apps will run just fine in Win7, OSX and Linux.
Just as OSX is Unix done right...ChromeOS will likely be Linux done right.
1. The press likes Google.
True probably, but the press likes Google in the way the press liked Microsoft for a long time. They assumed everything they touched would succeed, even when it was apparent that they weren't so much succeeding as overwhelming or outlasting their competitors. This is the media's general assumption about Google today. The parallels are disquieting.
2. Google is a highly innovative, well-run company with a strong track record.
This I question. I think Google has so far been essentially a one-trick pony. Like Microsoft, it's a good and profitable one trick, but still just one trick. As you acknowledge, many of their other projects seem unfinished, probably because they are unfinished, and their entire approach seems unfocused. Not the sign of a well run company, IMO.
This I question. I think Google has so far been essentially a one-trick pony. Like Microsoft, it's a good and profitable one trick, but still just one trick. As you acknowledge, many of their other projects seem unfinished, probably because they are unfinished, and their entire approach seems unfocused. Not the sign of a well run company, IMO.
in one sense you are right; Google is a "one-trick pony" since everything they do revolves around ads. They are an advertising company that can supply free services because of these ad supported services. ChromeOS will not change that. In fact, it will prop it up since use of ChromeOS using the Chrome browser will keep Google from paying Mozilla, Apple and other companies from making a dime from the search bar.
PS: Despite being open source I wonder if the EU will have a problem with this tie in. I suppose Google will have to allow the option for other search engines.
in one sense you are right; Google is a "one-trick pony" since everything they do revolves around ads. They are an advertising company that can supply free services because of these ad supported services. ChromeOS will not change that. In fact, it will prop it up since use of ChromeOS using the Chrome browser will keep Google from paying Mozilla, Apple and other companies from making a dime from the search bar.
This is where the parallels to Microsoft become even more startling. Practically everything Microsoft does revolves around Windows, at least anything they've accomplished to any measure of success in the last 15 years. Microsoft has been all about leveraging their Windows dominance; where they can't do that, they've floundered. Google is trying to do the same thing with their massive hegemony over online advertising.
in one sense you are right; Google is a "one-trick pony" since everything they do revolves around ads. They are an advertising company that can supply free services because of these ad supported services. ChromeOS will not change that. In fact, it will prop it up since use of ChromeOS using the Chrome browser will keep Google from paying Mozilla, Apple and other companies from making a dime from the search bar.
Actually it is changing. There is a professional version of Google Apps that is ad free. Search and ads is where Google made all its money but its core strength is providing web services. A strength it has to leverage to move forward beyond adsense revenue.
Besides, paying Mozilla is cheap given the eyeballs. How much Google pays Apple no one seems to know but it hardly matters to Apple. It's not like they're likely to switch to Bing.