I have to say that predictably there is a lot of media attention to the Google OS announcement. Some commentary is below:
- Google declares total war on Microsoft
- Google’s vanity OS is Microsoft’s dream
- Will Google Chrome OS Be Any Different than LINUX, BEOS, Network Computer, etc.?
- Google declares total war on Microsoft, but the main battles are years away
- Google’s Chrome Operating System: A Revolution in the Making?
Actually this is a rare time I disagree with “TheRegister”. I think this will have a potentially profound affect on computing as we know it. Years ago we didn’t have infrastructure to support net computing, but now with the various cloud services and the fact everyone wants connectivity from anywhere – now times are different. Obviously only time will tell which is more accurate (no one is ever 100% right 
).
However as an application developer it makes me wonder where applications are going to end up. Actually I think I know, but I’m not sure corporations have really cottoned on to the significant change in technical directions. So let me ask a different question that will circle back around to the impact of Google OS! Everyone is looking into supporting low/no footprint client applications (RIA), and we have a varied number of choices:
- Citrix/XWindows/X11 – Remote access via terminal sessions
- Flash – The classic RIA within the browser
- SilverLight – Microsoft RIA platform within the browser
- Click-Once-Applications – .Net applications deployable from the browser
- Java FX – Java RIA platform within the browser
- Browser/JavaScript/HTML5 – the browser!
So it would appear the browser is going to be a fairly core piece of architecture that is going to have to exist for a number of years, the question is what is going to become dominate in it? What is your company betting on?
Lets put these choices in a different order of the directions the various supplier companies want us to go in:
- Sun – Java FX, multi platform
- Microsoft – Silverlight/.Net click-once, Windows + Mono
- Adobe – Flash, multi platform
- Google – Browser/JavaScript
Google is betting on making everything web based and running in the cloud. Now back to the developer question, a couple of years ago there were limited mobile device penetration into the general masses. Blackberries were used by corporate folks to get important emails and general access – others had pagers! Now a significant growing percentage of people have ‘smart phones’ that have ‘unlimited’ data plans. As a developer 5 years ago who would have spoken about supporting Safari as a browser for your application? With the iPhone how many times a day do you think a business person is thinking – I wish I had this application on my iPhone.
If Google sticks to pure Javascript within the browser they will have coverage EVERYWHERE. Apple cant lock them out through the Apple store, Microsoft cant disable JavaScript support within their browser to cut out Google. Stability issues cant be attributed to a third party add-in such as JavaFX, Silverlight or Flash which doesn’t work so well on that specific platform – the browser is responsible.
Google applications will be globally available to all netbooks, Google OS, Android phones, Windows phones, iPhones and what ever technology platform is next (as long as it has a browser capable of JavaScript). Add to this that HTML is getting smarter with HTML5, things are definitely coming into place for Google.
So back to the question – What impact to developers? My guess is that if you have tried in the past to generate a HTML application and you (or your company) now no longer entertain that idea as it was hard/complicated/problematic – you will be changing your mind within a couple of years. Naturally there will be ever evolving more helpful tool-sets to further help development, but I think the pure web apps are back in force and will be unstoppably dominant. The question is “Are you ready to accept that fact yet?“…
Time will tell , but I’m betting its going to be nearly pure Web client applications with lots of cloud magic pulling the strings. Google has been quietly moving this way for a while and the Google OS is the beginning of the public face of this change, and as a result this will be a massive change that development shops need to cater for.
Gareth