Fact, Fiction, and the New Era of Computing
The most controversial product in Information Technology is one that doesn't even exist... yet.
On Tuesday July 7th, Google announced its long-suspected intention to develop an operating system product. The announcement was relatively short on specifics, simply stating that Google intends to offer an operating system product in late 2010 that will consist of a "new windowing system" running on a Linux kernel. The announcement went on to specify a target audience of Web-centric users and the relatively modest goal of producing a product that was faster and lower-maintenance than currently available products (i.e., Windows). Another key point was being able to run on "netbooks", the low-powered computing alternative that has become one of the faster-growing segments of the hardware market.
The reaction to the announcement to date weighs in at about 40 million hits on Google--or 10 million hits if you...*ahem* "Bing it". While I am not entirely sure what to make of the disparity in those numbers, I have no difficulty at all deciphering a significant number of those hits as preemptive disinformation from pro-Microsoft shills and flacks.
A day after the announcement, PC World weighed in with "Five Questions About Google Chrome OS", and let us know how it *really* felt two days later with "Five Reasons Google Chrome OS Will Fail".
Meanwhile, Slate.com's technology columnist, Farhad Manjoo, demonstrated that he, too, could count the fingers on one hand with "Five Five Reasons Why Google's New Operating System Is Doomed", which has had front-page exposure since it came out two days after Google's announcement. These various pronouncements have more in common than an obsession with the number five. Each of them contains at least one glaring factual error (typically having to do with profound ignorance of what Linux really is and how it works). Each of them contains from two to three "straw man" arguments that have no bearing on the actual merits of Google's intentions (typically criticising a business strategy that hasn't even been announced yet). All of them waste one of their five points on the truism that Microsoft is a big, bad company with a reputation for Mafioso-like behavior toward competitors. But most significantly, all of these authors, intentionally or otherwise, misunderstand to the point of high comedy the historic import of the Chrome OS announcement.
We live in a world where history has essentially ceased to exist. That which has been for more than five years is treated as though it has existed for eternity. Nowhere is this tendency more prevalent than in the technology world, parts of which reinvent themselves on an almost daily cycle. That being the case, it is no surprise that very few people still recall the combination of luck, cunning, and timing that brought into being the technology colossus we now know as Microsoft.
The only reason that Microsoft exists now is because 30 years ago the dominant players in information technology failed to recognize the advent of a fundamental paradigm shift. Xerox essentially invented the modern desktop computer, complete with graphical user interface and mouse, in 1973... and essentially abandoned it by 1980, the better to make money from copiers. In 1981, IBM released a far less powerful and sophisticated machine, the Model 5150 Personal Computer. The sole purpose of this machine was to eat into the market share of the Apple II and other small computers. IBM had so little confidence in the long-term significance of desktop computers (the real money, everyone knew, was selling very large and expensive mainframes), that they didn't even bother to development their own operating system. They sourced that part of the project out... to a little company called Microsoft.
It's now time for another shift, one called cloud computing. Desktop computing shifted the work of information processing and running applications from central mainframes to individual workstations. Cloud Computing is frequently criticized as a return to the previous, centralized paradigm. In fact, it represents a complex ecology of computing services in which distributed processes run where it makes the best sense to run them and data "lives" where it is safest and most accessible. In this paradigm, a computer that is not connected to the Internet is barely more useful than a paperweight. For many, if not most contemporary computer users, the era of Cloud Computing has already arrived. They store photos on one server, documents on another, use web-based tools to edit them, then use social networking sites to distribute them. Google has made it very plain that Chrome OS will target these users and provide an experience very much tailored to their needs and concerns.
Unlike the oblivious behemoths that gave Microsoft its opportunity for growth, Microsoft's leadership is far from unaware of what is going on--and they are doing everything they can to put Microsoft's branding on Cloud Computing. The problem is that there is only so much they can really do. Microsoft has announced for years their intention to migrate their flagship cash cow, Microsoft Office, to what is now referred to as "The Cloud". And, yes, a week after Google's announcement of Chrome OS, Microsoft will be going live with " Office Live". It's taken them years to get there, though, and the expectation is that the client hardware requirements will pretty much equal a standard business desktop or laptop system. Netbooks, particularly those struggling to run Windows, will simply not have enough horse power. Access Office Live from your phone? Good Luck.
At the same time that Microsoft has been struggling to turn their bloated codebase into something that can run over the Web, they have been engaged in a heated battle to keep hardware vendors from selling netbooks running Linux. It has been common knowledge for years that the Linux kernel and a graphic shell can run quite comfortably on hardware that will grind to a halt under Windows. Netbooks trade hardware capacity for increased portability and lower price, ideally suiting them for Linux. To date, Microsoft's strategy to keep Linux-equipped netbooks off the market has been to dump copies of Windows XP to hardware vendors below cost while they struggle to write a version of Windows 7 that can actually run on a netbook (forget Vista... it's literally a non-starter). Given that Microsoft has already terminated primary support for XP, this is a stalling tactic at best. Given that the expected OEM license cost of stripped-down versions of Windows 7 is expected to weigh in at around $40 a pop--versus an effective cost of nothing for any Linux-based product, including Chrome OS-- it is difficult to see why manufacturers would wish to damage their already-slim margins on hardware that could retail for as little as $200. Meanwhile, a number of netbook manufacturers have already announced that they will support Chrome OS.
Given their limited options in terms of actual competition, expect to see Microsoft aggressively compete in the one area where they consistently excel--marketing, and managing their message in the media. Microsoft may not have invented FUD as a marketing strategy, but they have honed it over the years to a fine art. Also, they have a number of allies and accomplices in the media. Lazy tech writers like Microsoft products for the same reason lazy coders and lazy sysadmins like them... as long as you read the marketing material, you don't really have to know what you're doing. The misleading articles cited above are a bare fraction of what's come out since the Chrome OS announcement. By the time the product is actually available, it will probably require the combined efforts of Google *and* Bing to keep up with all of the disinformation and flack.
It's dangerous to overwork historical analogies. Microsoft is not nearly as complacent as IBM was when they handed Microsoft the potential to make trillions of dollars, nor is Google nearly as small as Microsoft was when that hand-off occurred. But those differences somewhat cancel each other out: A bigger company can better fight off a less oblivious adversary. There clearly is an analogy, though-- and history is clearly repeating itself. And the potential benefits to those of us who actually use information technology are vast.
The next year is going to be very damned interesting.
The most controversial product in Information Technology is one that doesn't even exist... yet.
On Tuesday July 7th, Google announced its long-suspected intention to develop an operating system product. The announcement was relatively short on specifics, simply stating that Google intends to offer an operating system product in late 2010 that will consist of a "new windowing system" running on a Linux kernel. The announcement went on to specify a target audience of Web-centric users and the relatively modest goal of producing a product that was faster and lower-maintenance than currently available products (i.e., Windows). Another key point was being able to run on "netbooks", the low-powered computing alternative that has become one of the faster-growing segments of the hardware market.
The reaction to the announcement to date weighs in at about 40 million hits on Google--or 10 million hits if you...*ahem* "Bing it". While I am not entirely sure what to make of the disparity in those numbers, I have no difficulty at all deciphering a significant number of those hits as preemptive disinformation from pro-Microsoft shills and flacks.
A day after the announcement, PC World weighed in with "Five Questions About Google Chrome OS", and let us know how it *really* felt two days later with "Five Reasons Google Chrome OS Will Fail".
Meanwhile, Slate.com's technology columnist, Farhad Manjoo, demonstrated that he, too, could count the fingers on one hand with "Five Five Reasons Why Google's New Operating System Is Doomed", which has had front-page exposure since it came out two days after Google's announcement. These various pronouncements have more in common than an obsession with the number five. Each of them contains at least one glaring factual error (typically having to do with profound ignorance of what Linux really is and how it works). Each of them contains from two to three "straw man" arguments that have no bearing on the actual merits of Google's intentions (typically criticising a business strategy that hasn't even been announced yet). All of them waste one of their five points on the truism that Microsoft is a big, bad company with a reputation for Mafioso-like behavior toward competitors. But most significantly, all of these authors, intentionally or otherwise, misunderstand to the point of high comedy the historic import of the Chrome OS announcement.
We live in a world where history has essentially ceased to exist. That which has been for more than five years is treated as though it has existed for eternity. Nowhere is this tendency more prevalent than in the technology world, parts of which reinvent themselves on an almost daily cycle. That being the case, it is no surprise that very few people still recall the combination of luck, cunning, and timing that brought into being the technology colossus we now know as Microsoft.
The only reason that Microsoft exists now is because 30 years ago the dominant players in information technology failed to recognize the advent of a fundamental paradigm shift. Xerox essentially invented the modern desktop computer, complete with graphical user interface and mouse, in 1973... and essentially abandoned it by 1980, the better to make money from copiers. In 1981, IBM released a far less powerful and sophisticated machine, the Model 5150 Personal Computer. The sole purpose of this machine was to eat into the market share of the Apple II and other small computers. IBM had so little confidence in the long-term significance of desktop computers (the real money, everyone knew, was selling very large and expensive mainframes), that they didn't even bother to development their own operating system. They sourced that part of the project out... to a little company called Microsoft.
It's now time for another shift, one called cloud computing. Desktop computing shifted the work of information processing and running applications from central mainframes to individual workstations. Cloud Computing is frequently criticized as a return to the previous, centralized paradigm. In fact, it represents a complex ecology of computing services in which distributed processes run where it makes the best sense to run them and data "lives" where it is safest and most accessible. In this paradigm, a computer that is not connected to the Internet is barely more useful than a paperweight. For many, if not most contemporary computer users, the era of Cloud Computing has already arrived. They store photos on one server, documents on another, use web-based tools to edit them, then use social networking sites to distribute them. Google has made it very plain that Chrome OS will target these users and provide an experience very much tailored to their needs and concerns.
Unlike the oblivious behemoths that gave Microsoft its opportunity for growth, Microsoft's leadership is far from unaware of what is going on--and they are doing everything they can to put Microsoft's branding on Cloud Computing. The problem is that there is only so much they can really do. Microsoft has announced for years their intention to migrate their flagship cash cow, Microsoft Office, to what is now referred to as "The Cloud". And, yes, a week after Google's announcement of Chrome OS, Microsoft will be going live with " Office Live". It's taken them years to get there, though, and the expectation is that the client hardware requirements will pretty much equal a standard business desktop or laptop system. Netbooks, particularly those struggling to run Windows, will simply not have enough horse power. Access Office Live from your phone? Good Luck.
At the same time that Microsoft has been struggling to turn their bloated codebase into something that can run over the Web, they have been engaged in a heated battle to keep hardware vendors from selling netbooks running Linux. It has been common knowledge for years that the Linux kernel and a graphic shell can run quite comfortably on hardware that will grind to a halt under Windows. Netbooks trade hardware capacity for increased portability and lower price, ideally suiting them for Linux. To date, Microsoft's strategy to keep Linux-equipped netbooks off the market has been to dump copies of Windows XP to hardware vendors below cost while they struggle to write a version of Windows 7 that can actually run on a netbook (forget Vista... it's literally a non-starter). Given that Microsoft has already terminated primary support for XP, this is a stalling tactic at best. Given that the expected OEM license cost of stripped-down versions of Windows 7 is expected to weigh in at around $40 a pop--versus an effective cost of nothing for any Linux-based product, including Chrome OS-- it is difficult to see why manufacturers would wish to damage their already-slim margins on hardware that could retail for as little as $200. Meanwhile, a number of netbook manufacturers have already announced that they will support Chrome OS.
Given their limited options in terms of actual competition, expect to see Microsoft aggressively compete in the one area where they consistently excel--marketing, and managing their message in the media. Microsoft may not have invented FUD as a marketing strategy, but they have honed it over the years to a fine art. Also, they have a number of allies and accomplices in the media. Lazy tech writers like Microsoft products for the same reason lazy coders and lazy sysadmins like them... as long as you read the marketing material, you don't really have to know what you're doing. The misleading articles cited above are a bare fraction of what's come out since the Chrome OS announcement. By the time the product is actually available, it will probably require the combined efforts of Google *and* Bing to keep up with all of the disinformation and flack.
It's dangerous to overwork historical analogies. Microsoft is not nearly as complacent as IBM was when they handed Microsoft the potential to make trillions of dollars, nor is Google nearly as small as Microsoft was when that hand-off occurred. But those differences somewhat cancel each other out: A bigger company can better fight off a less oblivious adversary. There clearly is an analogy, though-- and history is clearly repeating itself. And the potential benefits to those of us who actually use information technology are vast.
The next year is going to be very damned interesting.
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