Chrome OS: Google Will Need to Improve Usability to Succeed
Late last night Google announced the Chrome OS, a competitor to Windows 7 and Mac OS X.
Initially, Chrome OS will be targeted at Netbooks as a lightweight way to get users online and into Google’s ecosystem more quickly.
And perhaps therein lies the rub: Google’s existing web applications aren’t very easy to use.
Compared to traditional competing desktop-based tools like Apple Mail and Microsoft Word Google’s offerings are bare bones, confusing, unstable, and feature-limited.
If Google brings its standard geek-beta mentality to bear on an OS, it’s almost certainly doomed to failure.
Moving towards the cloud is an interesting idea. It’s a trend towards making laptops and netbooks into wireless dummy terminals. Personally I think it’s great, but then again I love my Google apps and have never had any problems with them, other than some formatting issues in Docs.
Stephen Williamson
July 8, 2009 at 3:17 pm
But what happens when you live in the Yukon and Internet access is known to go offline multiple times a week? Can you even use the Google O/S without Internet?
Geof Harries
July 9, 2009 at 9:01 am