The New Wave Of Operating Systems

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 08:31:46 +0100

I find the recent discussion about Google’s Chrome OS and other operating systems/netbook solutions like Litl or HyperSpace very interesting.
The idea to use a computer as a thin client ‘just’ to access the web is really great. All your data is stored on the internet and all you use are web applications to accomplish your tasks.

I think there is a huge potential for these type of OSes although it’s not (yet) suitable for everyone.

Who will use it?

I believe there are millions of users out there that have a personal computer and only use it for doing stuff on the internet. And even if they do something else, using a classic desktop application - like writing the occasional letter in MS Word f.e. - there is already a web application for this.
These users don’t need an expensive, full-featured computer with lots of storage and processing power to accomplish their tasks.

The huge advantage that web applications have, is that users don’t have to install anything. It’s easy, works everywhere and you don’t have to worry about the hardware. You also don’t have to deal with anything malicious like viruses or malware, either. It just works! And that is what these users want and need.
With Offline Web Applications coming with the HTML5 specification, this doesn’t even make the computer useless when you don’t have an internet connection available all the time. Of course, you won’t be able to chat with your friends while offline, but you still can write that e-mail you would like to send later or improve and finish the document you’re currently working on.

As shown in the demo of Chrome OS, you even can work with images from your digital camera and store them on the internet using an appropriate service. I believe a lot of users don’t process their images anyway and also share them anyway. So why store it on your local machine?
Even if they did process some of their images, they may also be satisfied with a less powerful online image editor like f.e. Picnik.

When selling these netbooks and their OSes, there might be a challenge of convincing these users to store everything on the web. But I don’t think that this is too hard to do: they already store a lot of data on the web, so why not store everything else there, too?
I think that’s even more secure for them, because I believe a lot of people don’t do regular backups. With every document stored in the cloud, they don’t have to worry about this, because the service provider is probably very serious about backups and availability unless he wants to ruin his business easily.

Netbooks and OSes like Chrome are cheap, easy to use and maintenance-free. That is perfect for people who use a computer to access the internet.

Who will not use it?

These OSes and netbooks are not made for people that need lots of storage capacity, processing power and/or desktop apps that make use of this.
To only name a few of these tasks, you are not able to manage and listen to your music library, process and sort photos professionally, or f.e. make a music or video production on a netbook. Software development is also not easily possible on a netbook. At least not yet.

The future

I am really curious what the future will bring up. When an internet connection will be available everywhere, be lightning-fast, reliable and affordable and there are also affordable services for storing all of your gigabytes of data in the cloud, we all might only be using netbooks exclusively one day.
You will pay for your software on a monthly subscription basis and your data is available everywhere you go, no matter what device you use to access the internet.
But all this is really far away, I guess.

Right now, I think thin clients in form of netbooks, running a slim, secure OS like Chrome, Litl or HyperSpace are a great alternative for users that spend 100% of their time on the internet when they use a computer, and for users as a secondary machine when they don’t need the power and versatility of a full-featured laptop or desktop computer.

Daniel Pietzsch

The New Wave Of Operating Systems

Who will use it?

Who will not use it?

The future