Google Shows Chrome OS, a Chrome Web Store, and a Killer Strategy
Google (GOOG) has pushed its Chrome browser for two years and promised a netbook operating system -- Chrome OS -- for half that time. Today, the company gave a progress report. The big items were a web store for Chrome apps, a look at the new Chrome OS for netbooks due out in the middle of 2011, and, strategically most important, a view of a unified client experience that will sync across netbooks and Chrome browsers running on PCs and Macs.
Although Google is taking longer than it had initially anticipated, the company has laid strong groundwork that will appeal to many consumers. And, lord knows, Google has been pulling them in and reports 120 million regular users of the Chrome browser -- triple the number even back in January. The single biggest feature users request, apparently, is speed. And, so, Google is pushing to improve the experience. For example, a new built-in PDF reader opened the 1990-odd-page healthcare reform bill in a fraction of a second. No heavy graphics, granted, but a more image-intense PDF of 20 to 30 pages was as fast to open.
That's the foundation. Next step is the new app store. Think of it as an app store for a smartphone, except that all the applications are written in HTML 5 and run in sandboxes, so security should be fairly good. More important, the applications run anywhere that Chrome does and, even more important, when you sign in, the copy of Chrome synchs with what you have in Google's cloud. It's a smart move. Google has just turned itself into the solution to the problem of moving to a different computer and not having access to either data or applications.
Google will push on the app front because it obviously wants to remove Microsoft and Apple as the de facto personal computer client gatekeepers. When people feel that they can run what they need out of the Web, the impetus to install software locally drops precipitously. (Although many of the apps will work in a downloaded fashion, so if you lose an Internet connection, your work doesn't grind to a halt.)
These Chrome OS netbooks are very fast. Vice President of Product Marketing Sundar Pichai said that you can get a new one ready to use for the first time in under a minute. If the demo device was an accurate demonstration, I'd have said 30 seconds. Shut the netbook, open it, and you're restored and connected back to the Internet in about two seconds. They will include 3G connectivity that you can get from Verizon, only without a contract. Don't want to use 3G? There's Wi-Fi, as well. Want to use 3G? You can pay metered usage -- for example, $10 for unlimited use for a day. And there's 100 MB of free data transfer a month for two years, so incrementally adding usage can make sense.
In addition, the synchronization continues across them. Add an app on the netbook or even change the theme and any copy of Chrome can reflect the altered state.
It's this synchronization that may be the big problem for Microsoft (MSFT). Without thinking about it, you can have the same workspace greet you, no matter where you go. It's something that Microsoft simply can't duplicate without putting its entire software licensing model at risk. In a way, it's the same philosophy behind the Google eBookstore: make everything available pretty much any way someone would want it. It's a level of simplicity of operation that even Apple hasn't approached.
The one risk I have seen to Google's model in the past has disappeared: conflict between Android and Chrome OS. Someone on an Android device will be able to jump into Chrome, keeping the same tools available, while also allowing additional functions beyond what you can do in a browser. And with all the data that Google will harvest, it's likely to be a pretty payday for the company as well.
Related: