Everyone Will Be Using Chrome OS in 3 Years

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I could swear that someone predicted this three years ago and look where we are now. :rolleyes:

These devices are too expensive right now. But Moore’s Law tells us that this will change. Fast. And Chrome OS doesn’t need the latest hardware to run quite well, particularly now that it can take advantage of GPU acceleration. Sure, the original Atom-based Chromebooks were a bit pokey, but enhancements to the OS itself have taken big steps to address the issue. The latest generation of Chrome OS devices aren’t exactly using quad-core beasts. They’re leveraging commodity hardware, paving the way for serious price drops in the relatively near future.
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The problem with this is that while people might do 90% of their work in browsers, the true value of that computer (Laptop or Desktop) is that last 10%.
 
They have a long way to go if they're going to be competitive and an even longer way to go getting around the "Creepy Uncle Google" image they've earned for themselves in the recent past. Between Chrome OS and Android, I'd guess that small ARM desktops and notebooks with future versions of Android stand a much better chance at replacing current computers and establishing a new computing paradigm.
 
90% of my computing time is spent behind a web browser but not something I'd want to be 100%. Simply put I don't trust what goes on through my web browser. Also, web browser is only great for those who do nothing else but surf the web. Anything that involves content creation like documents, photo and video editing I would want done the traditional way.

If I got a PC with Chrome in it, I would likely replace it with Ubuntu or Windows.
 
Not with the broadband infrastructure in the U.S.. In three years, the average American's download speed might increase by 1 mbps — if we're very fortunate — and the average upload speed may not even increase. Verizon's going a little nuts doubling the speed of their fastest FiOS offering, but that's a technology available only for the very select few.

It's certainly true that web applications are getting richer, JavaScript engines are getting faster, and it's certainly true that this is going to facilitate a new era in rich web-based applications that can replace traditional local, native applications. But as we see advancements there, at a rapid pace, we see few advancements in broadband in the U.S.. The telcos and cable outfits have ensured that. The connections need to get better before we can really start taking advantage of these innovations.
 
This the same thing I have been hearing about Linux for 10 Plus years.... Sorry it's a Windows PC/Notebook world. Don't get me wrong, Love Chrome and Linux but in the business world and home people have invested to much into Windows to just change over. We have trouble enough getting people to not understand turning the monitor off does not turn off the PC ;)
 
I wouldn't use Chrome on my PC - or any other thin client OS - if it was the only remaining OS in the entire world, and the only OS modern hardware ran. NEVER. N-E-V-E-R. I'd jury-rig old hardware to run an old version of Linux, which I'd painstakingly take the time to learn how to maintain myself.
 
hate to bring up this point:
... but can it play Crysis?

Issue being I wouldn't run a thin client OS if it couldn't play/support my games.
 
awsiemieniec said:
hate to bring up this point:
... but can it play Crysis?

Issue being I wouldn't run a thin client OS if it couldn't play/support my games.
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Why did you have to do that? :p

Just for the record, a Dell Axim x51v runs Quake and Syberia pretty well from a CF card and it's old ARM hardware based on WinCE. The current Chromebox isn't really quiet up to the chore even if the game could be made to work in Google's "do everything in a browser" vision of how an operating system should work.

http://www.engadget.com/2012/05/29/samsung-chromebox-series-3-review/

For modern gaming to be impressive on something that's made to be a cheap as possible, the gaming powerhouse PC as we know it will have to cease to exist so our expectations are changed to accept lesser graphics and immersion. Well...us anyway. Normal people mostly don't care if each individual leaf on a tree responds correctly when a character brushes against it.
 
Kybmiser said:
This the same thing I have been hearing about Linux for 10 Plus years.... Sorry it's a Windows PC/Notebook world. Don't get me wrong, Love Chrome and Linux but in the business world and home people have invested to much into Windows to just change over. We have trouble enough getting people to not understand turning the monitor off does not turn off the PC ;)
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we made the switch at my work, everyone at work is now using a sun ray 3g+ and uses solaris as their main desktop, granted we also use the windows connector to run 2 windows apps natively and have the dc running in a vm but for the most part 90% of all work is done in solaris.
 
The article sounds too much like a Google press release, Chrome OS is not meant to replace a "full-blown desktop OS" as mentioned in their third argument.
Still, they have a point that all lower end mobile devices (phones, tablets, netbooks, not laptops) need only a browser. They don't have the hardware capability to run Windows games, or the capacity to store data. So Chrome OS or any other light browser platform makes sense.
You can probably do real professional work with it too if you can access your Windows work or home PC through some Remote Desktop web client. In that respect, I think new products such as LibreOffice are already obsolete. They should have started right on the web platform. At least Google with its Google Documents service gets it right and understands that people don't want to install apps and bother about file management anymore. It would have been real great to have an alternative to Google's solution.

The only limitations are connectivity, especially for on the road usage, where you don't have WiFi coverage, and cost, for permanent mobile fast connection and for storage in the cloud. It may mean that mobile computing will not be accessible to all, which sucks from a society standpoint, even if we don't have a "right" to free mobile computing.
 
Don't people say this shit about Linux too every once in awhile?

Never gonna happen.
 
I was a little jealous at first, of people getting FREE Chrome OS laptops. But, then I considered, even if I had one for free, I wouldn't be using it.
 
crashbox said:
we made the switch at my work, everyone at work is now using a sun ray 3g+ and uses solaris as their main desktop, granted we also use the windows connector to run 2 windows apps natively and have the dc running in a vm but for the most part 90% of all work is done in solaris.
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Sun is now Larry what's-his-name at Oracle. Ugh. Double ugh...;) If he's any better at all, he's only marginally better than Scott McNealy--and McNealy wasn't any great shakes in the brain department.

The kind of nonsense espoused in this article is not new--not at all. Twenty years ago (or more), McNealy and Sun were telling us all how a little gadget called "the network computer" was going to end the "domination" of the desktop.

If you are unfamiliar with the term, "network computer" was basically a dumb terminal...with Sun, of course, as our trusty utility-grid-like content provider--as its advertising jingle went: "The Computer is the Network." Or was it: "The Network is the Computer"? Whichever, Sun's message is easy to understand: the company was suggesting that people really didn't care for "being dominated by Microsoft," but they would fall in love with being dominated by Sun.

As you can imagine, The Network Computer went over like a lead balloon. Two things happened:

1) Sun couldn't make them
2) Nobody wanted them

I think at some point Scott McNealy got the message--probably while he was having one of his "Bill Gates eats with the North Koreans" fantasies...;) (If anyone here doesn't understand the reference, say so, and I'll clue you in--it's a riot!)

The problem for all such schemes is that people like--and even cherish--their local computing. I like to buy the hardware I like, and the software I like, and I like to own it and run it when I want to run it. I don't want to be made dependent on my connection to the Internet. As much as I like the Internet, I like it primarily because I pick and choose what sites I will visit and when I will visit them--and although I don't do anything on those sites that I wouldn't talk about publicly--I still sort of like to have the illusion that the best record of my activities to be found anywhere is on my own machine, and I kind of like that notion and would like to keep it that way...;)

You know, the funniest thing about all of these kinds of fortune-telling articles is the assumption that all of them make: that most people loathe Microsoft and would not of their own volition use Windows if they didn't have to. Well, what's funny about that is that these people never understand that Microsoft's Windows OS is popular. That is, most of the people who use it actually like it! And for two very good reasons, or maybe three:

1) Windows ROOB supports more hardware than any other consumer OS (If Windows supports a truck full of 3rd-party hardware, then OS X supports a drawer full, etc.)
2) Windows supports more 3rd-party software than any other consumer OS (It's far easier to find programs that run on Windows than it is to find programs that run on OS X, for instance. And it's easier still to find programs that will run on OS X than it is to find programs that run on a specific distribution of Linux, etc.)
3) People like--actually like--keeping their computing local--hardware and software--if it is at all possible. For some strange reason, most people prefer to control their computing environments and aren't prepared to cede that control to Microsoft, Oracle, Apple, or even Google, believe it or not.

Now, if you want to talk dumb devices, like so-called smartphones, iPads/tablets, MP3 players, and the like, these are just *portable* gadgets people use for limited and specific tasks, and their popularity has little do with computing and everything to do with portability. It's true that for some people this is all they need. But for the majority of people who own and regularly use desktops today--it is nowhere near "enough"...;) If they own these gadgets at all, they own them in addition to their desktops as opposed to instead of.

I personally believe we are on the cusp of entering a "golden age" for desktop computing. The hardware has never been cheaper or better than it is today, and it keeps on moving in that direction. Largely because of the Internet, ironically, software distribution for desktop computing has never been as ubiquitous as it is today, and prices are really starting to tumble down--as they should, because close to one quarter of the world's population owns and uses desktops today on a regular basis (between 1 billion and 2 billion people it is estimated) and the market is giganta-normous compared to what it was when Sun and the Network Computer were the talk of town!

The desktop computing paradigm is indeed a time-tested model that only improves with age--the "desktop computer" as a form factor has weathered ~30 years or so. What is the tablet form factor--a couple of years old? Can anyone seriously envision a tablet 30 years from today? I cannot because I don't think the form factor has that kind of market staying power--something better will come along to replace it, and fairly soon, I think. That's because it's a gadget with limited uses as opposed to a desktop computer with virtually no limits on what it can be used for.

Take the tortuous restrictions of some current 3g wireless networks and LTE, especially. Who wants a 5GB data cap and a bill for $10 for every GB in excess of that? That's the most egregious example I've heard about so far. A fool and his money? Possibly...;) With a desktop you can have the best that technology can produce in terms of speed and cost--the current crop of wireless networks are but a pale shadow by comparison. This is why I'm so leery of these articles that come along every once and awhile and proclaim that X is going to replace Y, and soon Y won't even be available! Let's hope that is never true, because in the case of desktop computers versus wireless gadgets, if the consumer should ever lose local-desktop availability we will all be immeasurably poorer for it--in every conceivable way.
 
Fujitsu sold the PenCentra 200 tablet in 2001 and it wasn't their first model. Tablet computing is pretty old hat. It just didn't catch anyone's attention until recently...unless you count Palm Pilots as primitive tablets.

Besides that...OMFG great rant, Walt!
 
I've never said to myself - "I need a new computer. It doesn't run my browser fast enough."

And it's all about market share, and the incumbent is Microsoft. Good luck with that Chrome.
 
I heard the same crap about Linux almost 15 years ago. Still waiting on that one.
 
Remind me to never pay any credence to anything else that author ever says. I think at most chrome os will be yet another operating system; I don't see that it has anything overly special that would make it all that popular. It may have some uses, but is still not even close to a viable replacement.
 
If Chrome OS has the same reluctance to release memory like their browser, then I just can't wait to get it for myself!

I actually use the browser 90% of the time, but between my ADD and multitasking it gets old when I'm always having to completely close every tab and start over because Chrome is taking up hundreds of MB of RAM.
 
MavericK96 said:
Don't people say this shit about Linux too every once in awhile?

Never gonna happen.
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Linux gets a little better and a little less painless to install every year. It only has to get to point X and it will be good enough where the 'free' aspect will take over.

Point X is roughly Windows 98-ish level of functionality and ease to start being a contender. Once its at Windows XP, it will start to take marketshare.

99.9% of the upgrades that Windows offers that Linux doesn't also incorporate right away as well, I don't need.

Basically it doesn't have to match today's Windows, it just needs to match 98 to XP level of functionality. Those are no longer moving targets.
 
Yea, that's not happening.

I think it's certainly possible, as the iPad has shown people are willing to buy products that focus solely and browsing and consumption. However, the iPad also comes with an (extremely) high quality multitouch screen and a vibrant app ecosystem. Chrome OS will be a good competitor once it can provide that value proposition.

I don't believe Google has the marketing and content producing chops to fully realize Chrome OS's potential.
 
jpm100 said:
Linux gets a little better and a little less painless to install every year. It only has to get to point X and it will be good enough where the 'free' aspect will take over.

Point X is roughly Windows 98-ish level of functionality and ease to start being a contender. Once its at Windows XP, it will start to take marketshare.

99.9% of the upgrades that Windows offers that Linux doesn't also incorporate right away as well, I don't need.

Basically it doesn't have to match today's Windows, it just needs to match 98 to XP level of functionality. Those are no longer moving targets.
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I really think that the more mainstream Linux distros are past the point of being only equal to Win9x and closing in on XP. There's a stability, security, automated patching and security updates, acceptable baseline functionality, and a software ecosystem with productivity, scientific, and entertainment programs.

Personally, I sort of think the reason it isn't catching on is because it's not being mass-marketed and sold to average consumers. Look at how commonplace *nix-derived OSX and Android have become. They're not unsuited to the consumer market, but they need OEM backing and the Dells and HPs of the world aren't interested in pushing it because it's a risky venture that doesn't benefit the bottom line.
 
MavericK96 said:
Don't people say this shit about Linux too every once in awhile?

Never gonna happen.
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Dan_D said:
I heard the same crap about Linux almost 15 years ago. Still waiting on that one.
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As long as they don't make claims about replacing the desktop, I don't see your point.

Have you no routers? ~100% linux boxes.
Have you no smartphones? 40% and leading.
Have you no tablets? Nook, latest kindles, androids...
Are the hardocp.com servers not running linux? If not, pretty sad.

I wasn't aware that the Amish commented on and worked for hardocp.com.
 
Wumpus said:
As long as they don't make claims about replacing the desktop, I don't see your point.

Have you no routers? ~100% linux boxes.
Have you no smartphones? 40% and leading.
Have you no tablets? Nook, latest kindles, androids...
Are the hardocp.com servers not running linux? If not, pretty sad.

I wasn't aware that the Amish commented on and worked for hardocp.com.
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On top of that a lot of media players, cable boxes, dvrs ... are linux. Along with TVs and most certainly GPS devices.
 
Wumpus said:
As long as they don't make claims about replacing the desktop, I don't see your point.

Have you no routers? ~100% linux boxes.
Have you no smartphones? 40% and leading.
Have you no tablets? Nook, latest kindles, androids...
Are the hardocp.com servers not running linux? If not, pretty sad.

I wasn't aware that the Amish commented on and worked for hardocp.com.
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It was in regard to replacing Windows as the dominant desktop OS. Sure I have plenty of Linux based devices, but nothing on the desktop side.
 
Dan_D said:
It was in regard to replacing Windows as the dominant desktop OS. Sure I have plenty of Linux based devices, but nothing on the desktop side.
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As a person who uses linux and windows daily, I do not see linux replacing windows on the desktop side anytime soon with the ease of windows and its relatively low cost there is not much reason for the average person to want to look elsewhere.
 
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