Skip to main content

Why Chrome OS is not going to do so well.

From the moment I first read an article mentioning Google's plan to create a Chrome OS...I was puzzled. At the time Android's success was not at all assured and there were no carriers producing phones for the device but a rumored G1 was said to be in the works from Verizon.

At the time my reasons were simple and pragmatic and all derived from the perspective of the possible consumers of such a device.

First, I was convinced from what I saw happening in the panel space that thin TFT LCD technology was on it's way out. As an Engineer I'd been keep in eye on the developments of Organic Light Emitting Diode technology that was in my view going to be the screen technology to end them all. If not it than some variant of it, I also knew from the production processes of such panels and their amenability to running off of standard CMOS fabs that they could eventually be produced in mass at prices far lower than what is possible with TFT LCD. Also, because OLED's can be produced in a variety of substrates (from plastic to glass) the material costs were lower...to me this all added up to a really cheap and beautiful display technology being read for devices within the next 5 years (that was 2 years ago). But what devices?

Around the time that Chrome OS was announced the smart phone segment was all but one phone, the Iphone and it was eating all the cake. I knew that the manufactures of panels would be itching to provide high margin OLED panels as soon s they could produce them to the cell phone makers...a few of the panel makers (Samsung, Sony) actually make cell phones themselves. This product segment would be the first target but by the middle of last year I realized that a large size smart phone would provide a killer touch sensitive surface to enable a new class of uses and I wrote a blog post on the coming lappad attack early this year to signal what was to come after hearing of the Ipad rumors. Now 8 months later, the Ipad is out and is a wild success and rumors of multiple pads from other hardware providers are already alive. Most of them slated to run Android as the OS...an Indian company already has made the bold claim that it's device will eventually be produced for $35 each. The strong pressures on all the competing pads that will be out to have low pricing will make differentiating difficult..however, when comparing one pad with Android and another with Chrome OS there will be glaring differences.

1) Android can run local apps without need of a web browser, Chrome OS may not.

2) Android can run stand alone games, Chrome OS may not.

3) Android can tether to a pc as a shared storage device for file transfers, Chrome OS may not.

4) Android will have a massive collection of apps written, Chrome OS runs the web but the uniqueness of it's mobile nature is harnessed by more apps which it may not have.

5) Android can be used on all major cell phone networks thanks to all the versions out there, Chrome OS may not even enable cell based phone calls (though it may do app based if it has that)

6) Android is perfect as an embedded system and is already going into proposed TV's. It's the perfect OS to run touch based TV's to come on OLED flat screens. Chrome OS also is good but in a tv will lack the software and drivers needed for local interface to the hardware of the tv.



Finally,

the main reason Chrome OS will fail is not because it will be bad or have some technical glitches it will be because Aunt Millie is going to walk into a store ask for a pad, be told the Android pad can do everything the Chrome OS can do plus half a dozen more things and production costs would not be any greater on the Android pad (though some companies might use the illusion of a difference to substantiate a slightly higher price)..in any event Aunt Millie is going to go with the pad that gives more over the one that gives less. I can see the Chrome OS maybe being useful to places where apps and all the bells and whistles of Android beyond the browser are specifically not wanted...say for use in libraries or other public uses but aside from that I just don't see it taking off. It will be interesting to see how things unfold.

Comments

NikiNick said…
Interesting!, I always thoughts of Chrome OS as more of a Windows OS nemesis for the future. Chrome OS is in its infancy but promise to grow up with all the bells and whistles like it’s cousin Andriod. I am sure both will play nicely together and poise to be dominant platforms of the future.
David Saintloth said…
3 years later, my prediction is partially confirmed.

http://www.pentagonpost.com/google-is-launching-an-androidbook-this-q3-report-says/8345279
David Saintloth said…
5 years later and my prediction is fully baked in to truth.

http://www.businessinsider.com/google-folding-chrome-os-into-single-android-software-2015-10

Popular posts from this blog

the attributes of web 3.0...

As the US economy continues to suffer the doldrums of stagnant investment in many industries, belt tightening budgets in many of the largest cities and continuous rounds of lay offs at some of the oldest of corporations, it is little comfort to those suffering through economic problems that what is happening now, has happened before. True, the severity of the downturn might have been different but the common factors of people and businesses being forced to do more with less is the theme of the times. Like environmental shocks to an ecosystem, stresses to the economic system lead to people hunkering down to last the storm, but it is instructive to realize that during the storm, all that idle time in the shelter affords people the ability to solve previous or existing problems. Likewise, economic downturns enable enterprising individuals and corporations the ability to make bold decisions with regard to marketing , sales or product focus that can lead to incredible gains as the economic

How many cofactors for inducing expression of every cell type?

Another revolution in iPSC technology announced: "Also known as iPS cells, these cells can become virtually any cell type in the human body -- just like embryonic stem cells. Then last year, Gladstone Senior Investigator Sheng Ding, PhD, announced that he had used a combination of small molecules and genetic factors to transform skin cells directly into neural stem cells. Today, Dr. Huang takes a new tack by using one genetic factor -- Sox2 -- to directly reprogram one cell type into another without reverting to the pluripotent state." -- So the method invented by Yamanaka is now refined to rely only 1 cofactor and b) directly generate the target cell type from the source cell type (skin to neuron) without the stem like intermediate stage.  It also mentions that oncogenic triggering was eliminated in their testing. Now comparative methods can be used to discover other types...the question is..is Sox2 critical for all types? It may be that skin to neuron relies on Sox2

AgilEntity Architecture: Action Oriented Workflow

Permissions, fine grained versus management headache The usual method for determining which users can perform a given function on a given object in a managed system, employs providing those Users with specific access rights via the use of permissions. Often these permissions are also able to be granted to collections called Groups, to which Users are added. The combination of Permissions and Groups provides the ability to provide as atomic a dissemination of rights across the User space as possible. However, this granularity comes at the price of reduced efficiency for managing the created permissions and more importantly the Groups that collect Users designated to perform sets of actions. Essentially the Groups serve as access control lists in many systems, which for the variable and often changing environment of business applications means a need to constantly update the ACL’s (groups) in order to add or remove individuals based on their ability to perform cert