[Bobboau]

what with Google's gmail, and now makeing an IM, and Goolge makeing it's own seperate internet, and mocrosoft planning to "fucking kill google"

how long is it intill Googlezon "devourer of networks" makes it's own opperateing system and totaly owns everything?

and might it be cool?

[mikhael]

Believe it or not, this is a conversation my wife and I have regularly. Both of us are big fans of Google, but we come down on different sides of this question.

She's very pleased with all that Google does, and thinks that GooglOS will be the bestest thing ever.

I am vrey pleased with everything from Google (especially Google Earth, but I'd like to see Google Flickr), but I think they are really good at making individual things and extending them. I don't think I want to see it all incorporated into one big GooglOS.

[Descenterace]

Good to see I'm not the only one who thought of that mad idea...

Installing a bit of software is one thing. Changing over to another OS is another thing entirely. The majority of users would stick with their current OS because they don't know how to change it. The others are probably quite happy with their current OS.

So if Google were to make an OS, it'd only be used by about half a dozen people at the most.

[Fineus]

I'm not so sure. Google does seem to make good products. I think the key feature that any OS they produced would have to have is the ability to not have it integrated to all things Google when it connects to the internet. That level of security to choose what applications you run is still very important indeed.

[Fury]

If Google were to develop their own OS, they most likely would use linux and use existing distros as an example. Developing a completely new OS from scratch would take immeasurable time and resources, not to mention it would require a full team of developers who know what they are doing.

If the GoogleOS would be based on linux, what really would make it different from the two dozen of other distros? I don't really see them developing an OS from scratch anyway. Them developing a new OS from BeOS is as unlikely as a completely new OS.

I believe Apple officially releasing their OSX to all x86_64 computers is far more likely to happen than GoogleOS.

[dizzy]

With the existance of very good open source OS kernels out there I don't think Google really needs to do a new OS from ground up. If they want to do something of their own they can take an existent open source kernel and build on it (at the application level, ie to offer you a "eye candy" interface because it seems most people confuse the OS with this) and/or extend if kernel if needed.

[WMCoolmon]

Maybe.

[Kamikaze]

I don't see the point in Google making an OS. Their strength is in applications and making the OS doesn't really help that. It's not as if Google needs to build special kernel features or low-level userspace apps.

If anything I think it's more likely that Google will create a web browser. If Google can control what browser technologies are used by the masses they can serve more interesting content. SVG, XHTML, CSS, Javascript all depend on browser support. Google's been big on AJAX solutions and it's far more beneficial to them if they control the client side than Microsoft.

[Rictor]

Actually, what would be a logical next step for Google is to start providing free webspace to everyone, to host files or whatever. The more the better. I think that as time goes by people will naturally host more of their files on the  Net for easier access, until one day hard drives will be at best a seldom used redundancy measure. Imagine getting 2 gigs webspace for free. That would just blow everyone else out of the water.

That, or they could always buy Ebay or Amazon. Or Mozilla.

[karajorma]

I wouldn't use webspace for anything except redundancy. I doubt many people on this board would either. WAN speeds might be increasing but I doubt they'll ever come close to equalling the speed you can get from local storage.

[Ford Prefect]

EDIT: How the hell did I post in the wrong thread?! I apologize.

[Descenterace]

Wrong thread.

[SadisticSid]

Hmm, whatever hurts Microsoft is good for 99.9% of us, regardless of whether you're on-side with the company or not. That article about Google poaching its top staff gave me a laugh.

[achtung]

I think Google's a great idea but it must be kept under control or "Googlezon" may just become a reality, I mean who wants another microsoft?  Well now that I think of it that sounds kind of good.  Maybe while Google and microsoft duke it out other smaller companies can emerge and add a little more competition to the market ie. linux.

[Flipside]

GoogleOS sounds like AOL waiting to happen to be honest.

[Rictor]

Originally posted by karajorma
I wouldn't use webspace for anything except redundancy. I doubt many people on this board would either. WAN speeds might be increasing but I doubt they'll ever come close to equalling the speed you can get from local storage.

Ever? Try to be a little more forward-looking that that. A mere decade ago, connecting to the Internet was a slow, ackward affairs where you modem would screech at you and take 5 minutes to load a single picture. I have little doubt that within twenty years at the most, probably a lot less, Net speeds will rival those of your local drive.

Besides, think of the advantages. Any game, movie or program would be instantly accessbile from anywhere, most likely free of charge. You could access your personal files from any computer, not just your own. I think it's more or less inevitable, it's just a matter of when.

[BlackDove]

Originally posted by Bobboau
AHHH! Googlezon is atacking!

In other words, I don't care.

[vyper]

You know, it's easy to go into the rebellious geek mode and say it'd be great to have another OS out there to rival Windows, but the reality of it is - the more OS' out there, the higher software development costs will go (esp. multimedia marketing tools) due to cross-platform development requirements.

This in turn increases the price of such projects, and thus starts to dampen the market.

[Descenter]

Originally posted by Swantz
Maybe while Google and microsoft duke it out other smaller companies can emerge and add a little more competition to the market ie. linux.

Google was a small company not too long ago...

[karajorma]

Originally posted by Rictor
Ever? Try to be a little more forward-looking that that. A mere decade ago, connecting to the Internet was a slow, ackward affairs where you modem would screech at you and take 5 minutes to load a single picture. I have little doubt that within twenty years at the most, probably a lot less, Net speeds will rival those of your local drive.

Really? And hard drive speeds would stay static for some magical reason? Local access will always be faster than remote access if only simply because of the fact that the server you're connecting to has to be doing it's own local access anyway.

Originally posted by Rictor
Besides, think of the advantages. Any game, movie or program would be instantly accessbile from anywhere, most likely free of charge. You could access your personal files from any computer, not just your own. I think it's more or less inevitable, it's just a matter of when.

meh. I think you're the one not thinking this through.

All my data instantly accessible. To everyone not just me. What about pivacy. Who else can access that data? The government are going to love your idea. Makes it incredibly easy to monitor everything since you've now given them one easy access point to everyones data.

What about hacking and viruses. I'm pretty safe from it cause who the hell is interested in data stored on my local drive. But one of these big google storage drives. Now that's an enormous target right there.

What happens when I've got no ISP. That's it. Computer's completely dead. All I've got is BIOS since if you're getting rid of HDs I see no reason whatsoever to keep CD and DVD drives after all.

And you're dreaming if you think it would stay free of charge forever. Maybe for a year or two to pull in the fools.