********************************
The uptime/downtime issue that recently impacted many Gmail users would apply to all cloud-based computer activities.
Good summary article ...
Again, Linux takes on Windows. Micro$oft created Windows 7 for several reasons, one of which Vista is too big, ugly and slow for netbooks. Google sees a marketing opportunity to put their own wrapper around another of the plethora of Linux distributions and target netbooks as well.
Google’s distribution will have Google all over it, for Google’s own purposes, so I would think it will not be as attractive as the FREE Ubuntu which is most probably the best managed, developed and popular Linux distro on the market today.
It will be interesting to see if people really want Google into “everything” they do on their netbooks. I certainly don’t for a host of reasons, and Ubuntu works beautifully on my netbook. And the price is right.
I doubt anything based on Linux will ever work for your typical home user. It is just too complicated - can we expect them to hand edit configuration files and compile programs from source?
Gawd.
How many stories between now and he middle of next year will we see about this vaporware?
Kind of reminds me about Lindows. The linux distro that was going to slay the giant because walmart was going to carry computers that had them until whoops the computers they were on sold at a rate similar to molasses moving in winter.
The trouble with relying on the cloud is that it’s not always available.
Cloud computing could be a boon for business travelers, but if I ran an IT department at a company, I’d want to set up my own miniature cloud, rather than rely on Google. Let the travelers tunnel in via VPN and access their stuff that way.
Cloud computing is the way this technology should go for 95% of home users. Most folks shouldn’t have to worry about software installation and maintenance. Home computer service should work like phone service or cable service.
Whether Chrome OS is a viable step in that direction is to be seen.
Except that without a web connection your computer becomes a brick.
Bullshit, or at least the implication is bullshit. Networks have been around almost as long as computers, certainly much longer than desktop "personal computers". Current hardware/OS's were a kind of power-to-the-desktop revolution from a system with distributed dumb clients where the apps and data were hosted on a single central system. The internet is just a meta-network that certainly provides access to a lot of information, but would suffer from many of the same issues and limitations older systems did.