From the creator of one of the world’s speediest websites we’re told we are getting “a clean, fast browser” that “gets out of your way” and “improves speed and responsiveness across the board”. A faster, better user experience is a wonderful thing, but we see something even more exciting in the Google Chrome debut—an irreversible shift in action from the operating system to the browser. In fact we believe that the Google Chrome announcement signifies that the browser IS now the new operating system.
It used to be that applications ran on top of the old OS, which in turn ran on chips. Now web-enabled applications and anything smacking of cloud computing and Web 2.0 run on the browser and the browser is where these applications meet desktop hardware—thus the browser has become the new OS. Just as the old OS made Intel chips useful, the browser will make the Internet realize its full potential as a computing platform.
This shift does not mean the old OS will go away, but it does foretell a decline in innovation within the old OS because the most compelling new applications do not run there. It is now the browser that juggles next generation applications, and will correct for performance problems because it is network savvy. The browser, not the old OS will be the future focal point for innovation.
For the long-term health and safety of the Internet we hope to escape a Microsoft Windows OS-like monoculture. Let’s keep our fingers crossed that Google Chrome lives up to its billing, and Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari, Opera and other alternatives remain vibrant. A diverse choice of browsers can prevent an “Irish potato famine” type disaster in which con artists and hackers concentrate their efforts on the vulnerabilities of a single new OS and bring the Internet to its knees and all of us with it.
Post Script: We stayed up late last night to take an initial spin of Google Chrome and our first impression was good. It lives up to the promise of being clean and noticeably faster. In fact we found its no-frills look and zippiness delightfully refreshing. And we were interested to see that the clever online comic book explaining Chrome’s why’s and how’s compares it to an OS—so perhaps we’re on track with our analogy.
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The analogy you're looking
The analogy you're looking for is wheels and cars. Once upon a time, wheels were a pretty neat invention. Carts pulled by horses were mostly wheels. What Google has done is invent the car. The car can't run without wheels, sure, but they've suddenly become insignificant. It doesn't matter what kind of wheels you have on your car. Nobody cares about wheels. What they care about is the car, and where it can take them.
With Chrome, Google has shown how the operating system is irrelevant. What matters is the online services you use. Chrome is an evolutionary leap forward.
In a stroke, Microsoft has become irrelevant. Microsoft will never go away, because they're too rich for that, but they will become irrelevant. Think about IBM, or Sun... These are companies whose days have passed, and which have become irrelevant. Microsoft is joining them. The future belongs to Google. Google is like a manufacturing plant with entirely the right toolset to produce stuff we want. Nobody else comes close. Microsoft or Yahoo! could try retooling, but their core competencies are elsewhere. They haven't got a hope.
What's been very frustrating over the last few days since Chrome was announced is people comparing it to Internet Explorer. That's like comparing chalk and cheese. Chrome isn't really a browser. It's an application platform. That it can access websites is a by-product, almost. Indeed, I currently use Firefox for general browsing, and Chrome to access Google Docs. This doesn't feel strange.