Why I’m Looking Forward to a Google Operating System

Posted by Michael Gray in Featured Articles on 07 9th, 2009 | no responses

As I’m fairly well known for my distrust and criticism of all things Google, so it probably comes as something of a surprise that I’m REALLY looking forward to a Google Operating System … allow me to explain …First off I’m a big fan of cloud computing, there are very few desktop apps

• Itunes – for syncing to/from my iphone and iPod
• Ultra Edit – text editing and PHP files and HTML
• Flickr Uploader – for moving pics in bulk to flickr
• VZ Access Manager – For my USB modem when I travel
• Windows Live Sync – For keeping folders on my laptop and netbook in sync.
• Carbonite – for offline backups (highly recommended)
• Quickbooks – I’d love to get off the desktop version and go online but the accountant says the version I need isn’t online yet.

I do have several other more intense and few non public programs and scripts but those all run on a dedicated server and not on my laptop or netbook. I don’t use word or excel I use google docs in apps for domains. I don’t use outlook or thunderbird I use google email for domains. I don’t use photoshop, or other desktop photo software, I use Picnik for all my photo editing, and I don’t do any video editing. So I pretty much live in my browser.

Since I don’t use many desktop apps, there’s really no need for any of my computers to have a lot of hardware horsepower, in fact the most resource intensive thing they run ran was Windows Vista. The three laptops I own all came with Vista pre-installed and ran slow, very noisy due to the fan constantly being on, and extremely hot. When I downgraded each of them to XP they ran perfectly fine. To put a fine point on it, it really doesn’t make a lot of sense to pay for hardware just to run an operating system.

While not everyone operates in a computing style like I do, there are lots of web workers and digital nomads who do, in fact I suspect this is the prime reason for the crunchpad being built. Truth be told I could probably run a linux install, but most people need want a simple GUI, and this is where the Google OS has an opportunity.

There will always be people who need a powerful OS and computer with substantial hardware, but for most it’s overkill. For most people it’s a cycle of operating system upgrades, followed by by a need to upgrade your hardware to run the new operating system. However if Google releases an OS, and makes it easy enough for everyone to use, we may finally have an option that doesn’t require paying for computer hardware just to run an OS. I understand Windows 7 is supposed to be easier to run than vista, but if Mircosoft doesn’t pay attention and service the “light computing” or netbook segment they allow google the opportunity get a foothold.

That’s not to say there aren’t privacy and “phoning home” issues that google needs to handle properly, but competition and options is a good thing … and I’m looking forward to a Google operating system.