Five Reasons Google Chrome OS Will Fail

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The closer Chrome comes to being a "real" OS, the more Linux-y it will become. Oops! A one-way ticket on the Voyage to the Bottom of the Market awaits.

5. Compatibility matters

Compatibility, both hardware and software was the major reason why the world anointed Microsoft its King of Computing. You may not remember the days of incompatible word processors, spreadsheets, and file systems, but I do.

Microsoft became a monopoly because a single vendor could best meet the needs of the largest number customers by imposing standards. Customers voted Microsoft the winner and they like not having to worry about compatibility issues.

My sense is that Chrome will be a lowest-common-denominator operating system for computers so small and inexpensive as to be essentially disposable.

It is true such a computer will do 80 percent of what I need to accomplish each day, but the other 20 percent requires specialized software, sometimes specialized hardware, and maybe more horsepower than a netbook can possess.

Compatibility really matters and while Chrome's world may be complete as far as it reaches, there is always more. That's why Windows, frustrating as it may be, will prevail. The "20" in the 80/20 Rule matters a lot more than proponents of "80 is good enough" like to think.

The example I use, and this applies equally to Macintosh, is the large number of specialized apps that exist only for Windows. They could be written for Mac or Linux but because Windows is so dominant, developers see no reason to build for other platforms.

I am about to buy a netbook primarily to replace a Windows laptop for carry-around use with an application that doesn't require a lot of horsepower, but for which only Windows software is available.

Chrome will have to become more popular than I can today imagine for this software to be ported over anytime soon. Some people just need Windows and it will be a long time before Chrome can negate that.

I am not predicting Chrome's doom even before it starts shipping, but it's important to think about the challenges any new operating system faces. They are considerable and, so far, no one has come close to clearing them. (Even Microsoft, some will say).

Tech industry veteran David Coursey tweets as techinciter and can be reached via his Web site at www.coursey.com.

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