Why Chrome OS Will Fail, Big Time

InfoWorld has an article posted today that explains why they believe Google’s Chrome OS will fail…big time. I had a feeling we’d see articles like this after watching that underwhelming webcast yesterday.

The bottom line is that while there is virtually nothing that you'll be able to do with the Chrome OS that you won't be able to do equally well with Windows, there are literally millions of things that you can do with Windows today that you'll likely never be able to do with the Chrome OS.

let it come out first?

I remember WindowsME ...

Originally Posted by eeyrjmr

I remember WindowsME ...

Windows ME was still a popular OS despite it's instability. Bad comparison.

I'm thinking Microsoft Bob, or BeOS.

I mostly agree with his points. The success of ChromeOS has little to do with google, and more to do with people's willingness to live in cloud computing.

I for one, have no use for it, as with most people I know.

well we all know chrome OS is just another linux operating system.. so its common sense that we know it wont be able to do everything windows can do.. but the one thing we can be guaranteed is that it will be a hell of a lot more stable then windows ever will be and can be.. while at the same time being completely open source allowing for better programs, upgrades, and addons to the operating system..

the problem with magazines, website, magazines, etc.. is that the majority of them dont know shit about linux because most of them are to scared to try using it..

then on top of that i love how they say in the article that googles just dumping the OS on the open source community.. everyone knows the open source community is far more efficient then a company that only has maybe 10-20 people working on the OS to begin with.. i mean hell how do you think linux and all of its distrobutions got to this point.. its all been done by the open source community.. even ubuntu was done by the open source community..

like risqu3 said.. lets wait til it comes out since its not slated til mid 2010 to be released..

Originally Posted by sirmonkey1985

well we all know chrome OS is just another linux operating system..

Which pretty much guarantees failure on the desktop.

Originally Posted by sirmonkey1985

but the one thing we can be guaranteed is that it will be a hell of a lot more stable then windows ever will be and can be.. while at the same time being completely open source allowing for better programs, upgrades, and addons to the operating system..

I'm not trying to nitpick, but this portion of your post really stood out to me.

First, let me say I've been a longtime Windows user, but I work in a lab that uses ONLY Linux systems and I have 3 Linux installs at home, one of which is always on.

Just being open source does not at all equal "better," in my opinion. A strong example of this is Open Office. OO is a "good" program, but Microsoft Office is far and away better for general use. Specifically, OO Calc vs. Microsoft Excel. Excel wins hands-down every time. As I just said, making something open source does not automatically add any value to the program.

As far as Windows stability, I'd be willing to bet that if you took a poll of the [H], you would find that MOST people, in day to day use, have not had a blue screen (exceptions allowed for overclocking, since that's a HARDWARE issue) since pre-SP2 Windows XP days. XP, Vista, and 7 are EXTREMELY stable. The only time I've ever had a bluescreen on 7 (none on Vista) was when I installed RAM and clocked it too high (my chipset wouldn't handle 8GB @ DDR2-833, since the chipset was only rated for DDR2-800, I was overflowing its max bandwidth).

Whereas, on my Ubuntu install, I can't get the ATI drivers to install without completely breaking my X server. xorg.conf completely craps itself after installing the ATI drivers and I have to go with VESA drivers or the open source X ATI drivers, neither of which will drive my display at 1920x1200 without shimmering b/c of a low refresh rate.

I will say this: Almost any MODERN operating system will not have issues on its own. Linux, Windows, OSX, whatever. If the user does not screw something up, you'll be hard pressed to find an OS that breaks itself. I've actually seen it happen MORE with the RHEL installs at work. Yum upgrade has broken more things for us than anything else.

Stability isn't really a valid argument either, in my opinion.

Chrome OS is a dumb terminal. Every single time someone has tried to push such a thing for home use it fails.

Originally Posted by [Tripod]MajorPayne

I'm not trying to nitpick, but this portion of your post really stood out to me.

First, let me say I've been a longtime Windows user, but I work in a lab that uses ONLY Linux systems and I have 3 Linux installs at home, one of which is always on.

Just being open source does not at all equal "better," in my opinion. A strong example of this is Open Office. OO is a "good" program, but Microsoft Office is far and away better for general use. Specifically, OO Calc vs. Microsoft Excel. Excel wins hands-down every time. As I just said, making something open source does not automatically add any value to the program.

As far as Windows stability, I'd be willing to bet that if you took a poll of the [H], you would find that MOST people, in day to day use, have not had a blue screen (exceptions allowed for overclocking, since that's a HARDWARE issue) since pre-SP2 Windows XP days. XP, Vista, and 7 are EXTREMELY stable. The only time I've ever had a bluescreen on 7 (none on Vista) was when I installed RAM and clocked it too high (my chipset wouldn't handle 8GB @ DDR2-833, since the chipset was only rated for DDR2-800, I was overflowing its max bandwidth).

Whereas, on my Ubuntu install, I can't get the ATI drivers to install without completely breaking my X server. xorg.conf completely craps itself after installing the ATI drivers and I have to go with VESA drivers or the open source X ATI drivers, neither of which will drive my display at 1920x1200 without shimmering b/c of a low refresh rate.

I will say this: Almost any MODERN operating system will not have issues on its own. Linux, Windows, OSX, whatever. If the user does not screw something up, you'll be hard pressed to find an OS that breaks itself. I've actually seen it happen MORE with the RHEL installs at work. Yum upgrade has broken more things for us than anything else.

Stability isn't really a valid argument either, in my opinion.

Tis true. I have never had a blue screen or instability issues with Vista and 7. Linux is good too but harder to deal with for setting things up.

Originally Posted by niconx

Chrome OS is a dumb terminal. Every single time someone has tried to push such a thing for home use it fails.

Chrome OS is what a lot of startups are waiting for. Big companies can develop their own OS for their own products. However, Chrome OS will allow much smaller companies to develop solid cloud based appliances with a MUCH smaller insertion cost.

Originally Posted by Spewn

Which pretty much guarantees failure on the desktop.

To be fair it's not meant for desktops.

Chrome OS is a web browser for netbooks & free.. for.. goodness... sake... stop... complaining.

Originally Posted by provoko

Chrome OS is a web browser for netbooks & free.. for.. goodness... sake... stop... complaining.

Nobody wants to have to buy a netbook to play with it. I think a lot of our complaints are valid - Google should allow us to install it on existing note/netbooks.

It's obviously not free if they're only letting us have it buying a new netbook. Sounds to me like Google's getting a percentage of the netbook sales this way.

I think these people fail to understand the target market of Chrome OS, or at least as I understand it from the information provided by Google, and it seems pretty obvious. The target machines that this will go on are going to be internet devices, be it netbooks, tablets, lower end desktops that are only used for internet. Not to say it might not be able to do more than that, or what might change between now and release but it doesn't seem to me that this is trying to replace Windows or major Linux distro's but rather be a more convenient OS for companion systems and the low end desktop for the "i just want their email, facebook and youtube" users that dont want to pay the insane price of Windows or fight with the troubles of the standard Linux distro.

With a little "easy, secure, virus-free surfing & email" marketing it just might get the "good for grandma" seal of approval.

Originally Posted by Intel_Hydralisk

To be fair it's not meant for desktops.

To be honest I stopped reading after the author started to rant about Linux's hardware incompatibilities...that is so blatantly wrong with today's Linux distros I started to laugh!

First off most people bitching don't understand that this is for netbooks and portable devices......and yes it will have offline capabilities. Down the road as it evolves it may be useful on the desktop...or not.

And the ones that keep saying "I don't do everything on the web" are the first ones to bitch and scream if their internet is down..."I can't get anything done since my internet is down "!

Originally Posted by Azhar

Nobody wants to have to buy a netbook to play with it. I think a lot of our complaints are valid - Google should allow us to install it on existing note/netbooks.

It's a VMware image of Chrome OS floating around at the usual torrent sites in case you want to try it out.

yeah I complete agree , open source does not mean perfect stability, sometimes its the latter, especially if someone developing something suddenly looses the urge to continue to improve the program. there is a good marketing to it though, saying its open source catches alot of people's attention since, a large percentage believes that open source = more stable

People will try it cause it is google, that is my thought, people use google for everything, so why not try the OS.