AlbertPacino
Skilled
So, I'm headed off to Japan on Friday, and not surprisingly, planning a trip to Tokyo has me thinking about the future of technology. It's also gotten me thinking about the always tricky problem of remote access. I mean, it's not like I'll be offline, and we'll be taking plenty of photos and video and even blogging while we're gone. But even though I'll have a laptop with me, I'll still have storage problems--all that video, for one thing--and my notebook doesn't have all the same software as my desktop, so I may not be able to Photoshop my digital images or track all of our expenditures in Quicken. These are just examples, by which I intend to lead you to my primary point...
...which is that I think Google's going to build a Web-based thin client-type hosted environment-slash-operating system replacement. Or at least, they should, and that's only if Microsoft doesn't beat them to it.
I sense we may have reached the "what is she talking about?" portion of the evening, so let me elaborate. Everyone seems to agree that Google's showing signs of building some sort of operating system. One of Microsoft's key Windows architects, Marc Lucovsky, recently defected to Google, and so far, his duties at Google haven't been detailed. Google's also been rapidly expanding onto the desktop--Google Desktop is the company's only other Google-developed product that's not in beta. They've acquired the photo-organizing software Picasa, along with the 3D mapping software Keyhole. There's e-mail client extraordinaire Gmail and Google Deskbar, which lets you search for and display Google results without opening a browser (a first step toward rendering IE, Firefox, Netscape, Opera, and company obsolete?). Meanwhile, a walk through Google Labs shows you personalized search projects, mobile solutions such as Google SMS and Froogle Wireless, and, of course, Google Maps.
Release the computers
OK, so Google is everywhere and seems to be doing everything. But everyone also agrees that a straight, software OS just isn't quite the Google style. So let me propose a combination prediction and pie-in-the-sky pipe dream. Consider the following:
Mark Lucovsky, our aforementioned Microsoft defector, was also the chief software architect for the now-dormant .Net My Services (code-named Hailstorm) project, which intended to deliver personal Web services and applications hosted at Microsoft. Meanwhile, Google has been working with a combination of Web application development technologies that have recently been dubbed Ajax.
Ajax, which is short for Asynchronous JavaScript + XML, combines JavaScript, dynamic HTML, and XMLHTTP to, in essence, let you build Web-based applications that run as quickly and seamlessly as local software.(Please read Adaptive Path's essay on the subject, since they're the ones who coined the Ajax name, and they have charts and Q&As and things.)
Now, think about Gmail, which, in a broadband situation (I'll deal with that in a couple of paragraphs), is probably more responsive than Outlook; and Google Maps, which doesn't show any signs of redrawing as you drag the image all over your screen. That's the power of Ajax, which removes most of the server communication, almost making you forget you're using the Web. Now think about what would happen if you had a word processor, a spreadsheet app, a photo editor, an instant messenger, a browser, a music jukebox, and any other "software application" running inside a Web framework that's as fast and responsive as any desktop you've ever used. Now imagine being able to access that environment from any Web-enabled computer (or device), anywhere. Remember Bill Gates saying, 10 years ago, that traditional software was dead and that all software would eventually be delivered over the Internet? Well, I think Google was listening.
In fact, I think Google could completely untether the desktop--take the idea of terminal computing to its most literal fruition. Or, I suppose you could argue, just return computing to its mainframe roots--after all, almost everything I'm proposing was done in the 1960s, with admittedly low bandwidth and way less data. But now, as then, any terminal you're sitting at is your computer. You simply log in, and every application you've subscribed to or purchased is there--you just get to work.
Devil's in the details
So, what about the data? This is the sticky wicket--and the point I'm sure you'll object to. All your files are there, too--they're stored centrally, by Google, or whoever builds this thingy. It's network-attached storage to the nth degree, and you literally have no need for external hard drives, jump drives, or desktop-based storage of any kind.
Now, before you freak out (literally every person I've suggested this to said, "People don't want to turn over their data to someone else"), think about this logically. For one thing, consumer storage is a rapidly growing problem--people are talking about setting up RAID arrays in their houses so that they can store all the video, digital music, photos, and other multimedia files they're constantly accumulating. Hard drives are getting bigger and bigger, and while all that storage is cheap and easy to come by, almost none of that data is getting backed up. If it is, it's an internal or external hard drive backed up to a network-attached drive, and all of it is stored in the same house. We should already have the bandwidth to back up automatically to remote online storage, but we don't. What if we just stored all that data remotely in the first place, within an infrastructure that's designed for redundancy and automatic data backup and on servers in colocation facilities designed to resist fire, earthquake, and nuclear assault?
Plus, to the inevitable privacy argument, I suppose you could choose to store sensitive data locally, but frankly, I'm inclined to think that most of us enable our firewalls, secure our wireless networks, and change our passwords only slightly more often than we schedule nightly backups.
OK, next question: bandwidth. Yes, it'll be a problem, for a little while. But the pipes are getting fatter. Just last month, Cisco announced that it will deliver gigabit broadband service to houses in Hong Kong--over existing copper wiring. A California group is working to ensure gigabit broadband to all Californians by 2010. Fiber optics are snaking across the world. We've all been talking about Web 2.0--well, this is it. We all know it needs to be faster, and it will be. Google can only help drive the rollout. Truth be told, the biggest challenge will be supporting the graphics you'll need to deliver a truly dynamic desktop environment in what was formerly known as a Web browser--but that's for another column.
Next: cost. Will it be a subscription service, or will you buy it outright? I suggest you pay for it like a regular operating system, one iteration at a time. Microsoft charges from $100 to $200 for major OS upgrades; Google could do the same. Then, you either buy or subscribe to applications developed by Google, much the way some of you now do with Microsoft Word and the like. Yep, it's trading one monopoly for another, but even Apple recognizes how much better you can do things when the software is integrated into the OS. Of course, Google's a bit freer with its API than Apple is with its development licenses, so the new Web order creates plenty of opportunities for software developers to take their work online. Boom! The dot-com revolution is reborn. The next thing you know, there is everywhere. Every computer is your computer. Onward to the universal terminal!
Source
I know its a long read but one thats really worth reading...
...which is that I think Google's going to build a Web-based thin client-type hosted environment-slash-operating system replacement. Or at least, they should, and that's only if Microsoft doesn't beat them to it.
I sense we may have reached the "what is she talking about?" portion of the evening, so let me elaborate. Everyone seems to agree that Google's showing signs of building some sort of operating system. One of Microsoft's key Windows architects, Marc Lucovsky, recently defected to Google, and so far, his duties at Google haven't been detailed. Google's also been rapidly expanding onto the desktop--Google Desktop is the company's only other Google-developed product that's not in beta. They've acquired the photo-organizing software Picasa, along with the 3D mapping software Keyhole. There's e-mail client extraordinaire Gmail and Google Deskbar, which lets you search for and display Google results without opening a browser (a first step toward rendering IE, Firefox, Netscape, Opera, and company obsolete?). Meanwhile, a walk through Google Labs shows you personalized search projects, mobile solutions such as Google SMS and Froogle Wireless, and, of course, Google Maps.
Release the computers
OK, so Google is everywhere and seems to be doing everything. But everyone also agrees that a straight, software OS just isn't quite the Google style. So let me propose a combination prediction and pie-in-the-sky pipe dream. Consider the following:
Mark Lucovsky, our aforementioned Microsoft defector, was also the chief software architect for the now-dormant .Net My Services (code-named Hailstorm) project, which intended to deliver personal Web services and applications hosted at Microsoft. Meanwhile, Google has been working with a combination of Web application development technologies that have recently been dubbed Ajax.
Ajax, which is short for Asynchronous JavaScript + XML, combines JavaScript, dynamic HTML, and XMLHTTP to, in essence, let you build Web-based applications that run as quickly and seamlessly as local software.(Please read Adaptive Path's essay on the subject, since they're the ones who coined the Ajax name, and they have charts and Q&As and things.)
Now, think about Gmail, which, in a broadband situation (I'll deal with that in a couple of paragraphs), is probably more responsive than Outlook; and Google Maps, which doesn't show any signs of redrawing as you drag the image all over your screen. That's the power of Ajax, which removes most of the server communication, almost making you forget you're using the Web. Now think about what would happen if you had a word processor, a spreadsheet app, a photo editor, an instant messenger, a browser, a music jukebox, and any other "software application" running inside a Web framework that's as fast and responsive as any desktop you've ever used. Now imagine being able to access that environment from any Web-enabled computer (or device), anywhere. Remember Bill Gates saying, 10 years ago, that traditional software was dead and that all software would eventually be delivered over the Internet? Well, I think Google was listening.
In fact, I think Google could completely untether the desktop--take the idea of terminal computing to its most literal fruition. Or, I suppose you could argue, just return computing to its mainframe roots--after all, almost everything I'm proposing was done in the 1960s, with admittedly low bandwidth and way less data. But now, as then, any terminal you're sitting at is your computer. You simply log in, and every application you've subscribed to or purchased is there--you just get to work.
Devil's in the details
So, what about the data? This is the sticky wicket--and the point I'm sure you'll object to. All your files are there, too--they're stored centrally, by Google, or whoever builds this thingy. It's network-attached storage to the nth degree, and you literally have no need for external hard drives, jump drives, or desktop-based storage of any kind.
Now, before you freak out (literally every person I've suggested this to said, "People don't want to turn over their data to someone else"), think about this logically. For one thing, consumer storage is a rapidly growing problem--people are talking about setting up RAID arrays in their houses so that they can store all the video, digital music, photos, and other multimedia files they're constantly accumulating. Hard drives are getting bigger and bigger, and while all that storage is cheap and easy to come by, almost none of that data is getting backed up. If it is, it's an internal or external hard drive backed up to a network-attached drive, and all of it is stored in the same house. We should already have the bandwidth to back up automatically to remote online storage, but we don't. What if we just stored all that data remotely in the first place, within an infrastructure that's designed for redundancy and automatic data backup and on servers in colocation facilities designed to resist fire, earthquake, and nuclear assault?
Plus, to the inevitable privacy argument, I suppose you could choose to store sensitive data locally, but frankly, I'm inclined to think that most of us enable our firewalls, secure our wireless networks, and change our passwords only slightly more often than we schedule nightly backups.
OK, next question: bandwidth. Yes, it'll be a problem, for a little while. But the pipes are getting fatter. Just last month, Cisco announced that it will deliver gigabit broadband service to houses in Hong Kong--over existing copper wiring. A California group is working to ensure gigabit broadband to all Californians by 2010. Fiber optics are snaking across the world. We've all been talking about Web 2.0--well, this is it. We all know it needs to be faster, and it will be. Google can only help drive the rollout. Truth be told, the biggest challenge will be supporting the graphics you'll need to deliver a truly dynamic desktop environment in what was formerly known as a Web browser--but that's for another column.
Next: cost. Will it be a subscription service, or will you buy it outright? I suggest you pay for it like a regular operating system, one iteration at a time. Microsoft charges from $100 to $200 for major OS upgrades; Google could do the same. Then, you either buy or subscribe to applications developed by Google, much the way some of you now do with Microsoft Word and the like. Yep, it's trading one monopoly for another, but even Apple recognizes how much better you can do things when the software is integrated into the OS. Of course, Google's a bit freer with its API than Apple is with its development licenses, so the new Web order creates plenty of opportunities for software developers to take their work online. Boom! The dot-com revolution is reborn. The next thing you know, there is everywhere. Every computer is your computer. Onward to the universal terminal!
Source
I know its a long read but one thats really worth reading...
