ChromeOS and Why Google Won’t Succeed in the OS War

7:52 Jul 13th, 2009 | 0 notes

Look at the laptop market ten years ago. What do you see? You see Windows dominating the PC arena, a Mac OS that isn’t anywhere near its current glory and a Linix base still wondering why people aren’t using it in the masses. Essentially, you have one market dominator and a few stragglers hanging around. Jump forward to today and you see a very different market for laptops. Windows is (still) dominating, but Mac OS X and Linux distributions, like Ubuntu, are growing like never before. The biggest difference you see in today’s market is that there is choice. You can walk around a store or browse the internet and find quality operating systems ranging from $500 to absolutely free.

But this is just the laptop market. Next to these well developed operating systems and machines a new bud is growing out of the idea that you don’t need a 17”, quad core processor to do everyday computing tasks like checking emails and browsing the web. That bud is the netbook, and with their smaller screens and slower processors a new need has arisen. That need is for an operating system to match the machine.

A few days ago Google announced their entrant into the netbook OS (operating system) market named ChromeOS. It promises to be a light weight, open source operating system designed with one thing in mind: cloud computing. Google says the OS will have no preinstalled applications and that computing can all be done on the web using services like the Google Apps suite and more. Originally, the idea for netbooks was that most of the work to be done on them would be done using cloud computing. It looks like Google is trying to return to this original idea.

But here’s the problem for Google: nobody will use ChromeOS.

By nobody I mean that the ChromeOS will fail to gain any sort of substantial market share. Why? Because Google has chosen to enter the budding netbook market when flowers are already starting to appear.

Look at Windows for example. Microsoft already acknowledges that the netbook market is going to be big with what they’re doing with Windows 7 (coming out in October). They looked at the netbook market, saw that the current Windows Vista doesn’t work on netbooks and that people were happy buying them with Windows XP installed, and decided that they needed to focus on getting Windows 7 to work perfectly to fill the gap they created with Vista. Their netbook solution: Windows 7 Starter Edition. While I can say first hand that Windows 7 Ultimate Edition runs brilliantly on a netbook, there is one very good reason why Starter Edition is Microsoft’s solution. Microsoft has said that they plan to essentially give Starter Edition away for free to manufactures just to make sure your next netbook will be running Windows. With the behemoth from Redmond giving away the most popular OS in the world, why would manufacturers even think about using a newcomer like Google’s ChromeOS on the same scale as Windows?

On that same point, look at what the Linix base has been creating for netbooks. Ubuntu Linux Remix has been out for a while now, ask any average user and they won’t even know what Linux is, let along Ubuntu. Even the likes of Dell, HP, Acer and Asus have offered Linux alternatives for their netbooks, but every attempt has been outsold by Windows XP. This shows that people like the familiar, even if that means the familiar is slower and older than the new alternative. For Google, ChromeOS presents an entirely new way of thinking about computing as well as being far different to peoples’ safe Windows haven. This will prove to be part of its downfall.

Restrictions in Linux OS’s and netbook OS’s have led me to use Windows 7 on my netbook. As an average consumer (well kind of) I don’t like the thought of my experience being restricted in any way. If you look at the ChromeOS, Google plans for you to do all of your computing over the internet. That means no storing your music, photos, documents, contacts, email or calendar on your netbook. Google wants that all online. It is this type of restriction that will be a major reason why ChromeOS will fail. What if you’re in the middle of nowhere? What if you’re on the subway? What if you’re on a plane? You won’t have internet access to get to your files. That is restriction number one. Restriction number two is online services. Google Docs, Flickr, Photoshop.com and iMeem are all great internet services, but none of them are at all comparable with their desktop counterparts. For example, Google Docs has nowhere near the functionality of Microsoft Office. That means the scope of your computing is restricted by the limitations of what the internet can offer you. With ChromeOS relying on you doing all of your computing online, you would be downgrading to a more limited experience by using it.

Similarly, Google themselves claim that all of the web apps usable on ChromeOS are available on all other operating systems. After all, ChromeOS is essentially just a web browser. Google’s struggle to market ChromeOS will come when people ask why they should choose it over Windows, which has much, much more to offer than just a web browser. People will have this choice: buying an OS that is a web browser, or buying an OS that has a web browser.

 The final reason ChromeOS will fail is this: Google has chosen to enter ChromeOS into a market where comsumers are already confused. Judging from the reaction of my peers to my HP Mini, it’s clear that the average consumer doesn’t understand the purpose of a netbook. People don’t ‘get’ what a netbook is, even when it’s running Windows. Such a far out concept like ChromeOS and its way of interpreting netbooks as just a web browser will only further confuse people.

Google’s mantra has been about simplicity and ease of use. But in the case of ChromeOS, I believe they’ve made things too simple. Google has failed to see that netbooks can run full operating systems to a high standard. They’ve failed to recognize people’s needs and normal computing habits. Most importantly, Google has failed to recognize that are attempting to bring what looks like an inferior product into a market with much better alternatives.

Google has come into the netbook game with too little, too late.