A new
version of Google's (Nasdaq: GOOG) personal computer operating system, Chrome
OS, was released for developers Tuesday. It adds design elements of more
conventional offerings like Windows and OS X.
The new
Aura interface includes a home screen with a task bar, or shelf, from which you
can launch applications. Previous versions required all activity to take place
within a browser-like window.
The OS
also supports multiple windows that can be minimized and maximized, as well as
resized.
In
addition, tabs within Chrome OS windows can be "torn" from there to
the desktop to create a new windows, a feature found in Google's Chrome browser
too.
Six-Week
Refreshes
"Our
vision with Chrome OS is to provide a user experience that gets better every
six weeks," Google spokesperson Jessica Kositz explained to TechNewsWorld.
"One
of the areas we've thought a lot about is the desktop and windows manager
environment, and creating a simpler, more intuitive experience for our
users," she continued. "As the latest version of Chrome OS is
released into the beta channel, our users will begin to see some of these
changes."
When
Google introduced Chrome OS in 2009, its design goal was to make an operating
system that blurred the lines between operating system and Web browser. This
latest version of the OS appears to be retreating from that goal.
That's
not a bad thing, however, asserted Chrome user David Carns, who is also
marketing and sales director of @Legal Discovery and an adjunct professor at
Georgetown University's School of Continuing Studies.
Capitulation
to Windows?
"All
they've done is make the home screen window look like a regular OS," he
told TechNewsWorld. "All the rest of the features are pretty much exactly
the same."
"There's
never been a home screen, a desktop screen that you could get to," he
added. "You were always in a browser window of one sort or another."
Others,
though, cast the latest revisions in a more radical light. "They're
blowing Chrome up," ITIC principal analyst Laura DiDio told TechNewsWorld.
"It looks like a traditional operating system now."
"With
this new release, with Aura and the shelf/task bar, Google is adopting a 'if I
can't beat'em, join'em' strategy," she added.
An
Uninteresting OS?
It
remains to be seen, however, whether emulating traditional operating systems
like Windows and OS X will improve Chrome's fortunes in the OS market.
"We
don't get a lot of our clients asking about Chrome OS or interested in Chrome
OS," Gartner (NYSE: IT) Research Vice President Michael Silver told
TechNewsWorld.
"There's
a lot of questions where it sits in the market, if at all," he added.
Linux
desktops have improved over the years but they haven't gained any traction, he
continued. Chrome OS is built on a Linux kernel.
"The
biggest reason they haven't been adopted is that organizations still run a lot
of Windows applications," he said.
He
estimated that half the applications run by a typical organization are Windows
applications. "Unless you get rid of all your applications and you're
ready to go Windows-free and browser-based, Chrome OS is not all that
interesting," he explained.
Dim Prospects
Google
has placed itself in a bind because, whether it likes it or not, Chrome OS is
pitted in the market against its very successful mobile operating system
Android, Silver maintained.
"They
have these two products that have come out of different areas of the company
and they have a lot of overlap and one of them probably isn't needed," he
said. "Chrome OS is superfluous."
Chrome
OS is an anomaly in the market, according to Rob Enderle, president and
principal analyst with the Enderle Group .
"The
market has largely rejected Chrome OS," he told TechNewsWorld. "It
isn't picking up much interest with OEMs and certainly not very much in the
consumer base."
"It's
seen as a crippled product and as a result, people can't figure out how to use
it," he asserted.
"Right
now, it's all but dead," he declared. "The only people who don't
realize it are the folks at Google."
View orginal artical here-Chrome
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