ChromeOS, the web platform for them, not me
It seems the network computer is an idea that, like a zombie army, resolutely refuses to lie down and die. A discussion thread within the Enterprise Irregulars group this week started off with an observation about where Google expects to find market demand for its ChromeOS:
“Businesses are accelerating in their adoption of cloud-based applications like SFDC and Google Apps. As the center of gravity of enterprise computing moves here, the need for large swathes of workers at enterprises (especially more ‘task’ oriented workers) to have full blown local computing systems that can run executables not originating from the web itself diminishes significantly.”
For the past fifteen years I have been listening to people talking about foisting restricted-function web terminals on ‘large swathes’ of the workforce (beginning with Larry Ellison’s NC and Scott McNealy’s Javastation). The thing I’ve always noticed is that no one ever says, ‘I want one of those.’ The proposition is always promoted as an ideal solution for someone else’s computing needs — and almost without exception it’s a use case the speaker has no direct familiarity with. Thus the Gen-Y software engineers that Google employs straight out of college apparently imagine that ChromeOS is a perfect platform for workers in call centers and manufacturing plants.
