Still As Life

Google Chrome, the most recent browser to join the fray. Is Chrome just a browser though?

I have to say I don’t think so. The release of Chrome reinforces my views that Google are directly targeting the operating system and integrated applications market. Be warned that the below is entirely my thoughts and theories based on my own observations and are not in any particular order but hopefully make sense.

Think about IT, Google already have a suite of applications and the support of Sun who tried to push cloud computing a while back (but failed). Now this suite of applications runs through the browser, not as feature rich as their counterparts like Microsoft Word, Apple Pages, Open Office and so on, but with enough features for most general consumers.

If you can run most applications through the browser, then the operating system can be reduced. At this stage, the only things that you really need to run on a local computer are graphic or data intense programs, such as games, video processing, 3D rendering etc, however, ultimately as bandwidth increases, these could potentially be run over the internet as well, further reducing the operating system. All you would need is to boot into the browser. It’s already built in to Windows and OS X, Explorer and Finder. Of course these are limited as far as internet activity goes, but you get the idea.

Google have been working on Android, a mobile operating system, now a computer operating system would be much more of a challenge to make immediately viable, despite the huge amount of BSD and linux distributions around that could be used as a basis. A browser is a logical step in this direction.

Separating tab processes, if you are running one application, you don’t want another to crash. When you are running them in a browser this doesn’t change, separating the processes makes for a nice stepping stone into what could potentially be an operating system.

Now, here’s another thought, Google pours how much money into the Mozilla Foundation, so why use Webkit as the layout engine for Chrome instead of Gecko? Afterall, Gecko is the one that Google have been funding so extensively.

Did you know that Webkit is a KHTML fork that was started by Apple? Webkit is also a more advanced layout engine than Gecko, the features that are available in it that are used in the iPhone and are slowly seeping into desktop Safari virtually do away with the need for plugins like Flash and Silverlight (not entirely, but it is getting there). Webkit is also funded by Nokia for use in the S60 browser. So, with two mobile browsers using it as the layout engine where none currently use the Gecko engine (that I’m aware of), Webkit is a tried and true engine for mobile devices.

So, Webkit has established mobile support from both one of the largest mobile manufacturers and from Apple for both the iPhone and desktop versions of Safari. While Opera and their Presto layout engine is the best for Windows Mobile devices, it is not open source and despite its quality, it doesn’t have the budgets of Nokia and Apple pushing it’s development. Webkit makes sense to use for the layout engine on Android, and subsequently for Chrome.

So, we have 3 mobile operating system producers utilizing Webkit, I don’t know the exact market share figures, but Nokia are the dominant mobile manufacturer and almost all of their phones use the S60 operating system. Apple’s iPhone has snapped up a large share of the market as well considering their inexperience in this area and Android has the potential to end up very widespread as well, all using variants of the same layout engine. There is a huge amount of potential here for Google to extend their mobile advertising, not just on Android phones.

Migrate to the desktop segment and what do you have? Safari is on every Apple computer and is also available on Windows, Chrome is supposedly going to be available on Windows, Mac and Linux. Then there are a number of other smaller browsers using Webkit. With the distribution of Safari and the potential distribution of Chrome, it would be entirely possible for Google to start gradually offering features of their applications that are only fully available on a Webkit based browser, and then ultimately, only on Chrome.

Doing something like this would be a risky path and would have to be done very slowly and gradually or it would alienate millions of users, but there is potential there for it.

Now, the Google CEO - Eric Schmidt - is also on the Apple Board of Directors, so he has interests in furthering both companies. So it makes sense as well, that Google is going to benefit Apple and Apple are going to benefit Google, at least to some degree.

Lets head in a slightly different direction, I was reading Simon Griffiths thoughts on Chrome today and came across a new development from Mozilla that I hadn’t heard of before, Ubiquity for Firefox.

Ubiquity takes a variety of Google Applications and takes them out of Google’s interface to integrate them into a quick and easy to use system. Simon explained it very well:

“…you open up a dialogue box with a keystroke and then type a command. This allows you access to functionality in a few keystrokes. With Ubiquity you can add maps into gmail, add calendar items and much more all by typing a few keys.”

If Google controls the interface, they control the advertising. If ubiquity combines many of Googles applications without the advertising, this represents a possible exposure reduction of many, many millions, the more it expands in popularity, the greater the reduction.

Since they control Chrome, there is the potential for Google to integrate all of their applications into it in a similar way to Ubiquity, and thus allowing them to retain their advertising. So as Simon suggested, Chrome is in direct competition with Mozilla’s Ubiquity.

Anyhow, just some thoughts on everything happening in this area at the moment. What do you think? Are Google going too far? Not far enough? Perhaps getting too power hungry?

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I have noticed over the past month or so that there have begun to be some more obvious changes in transport in response to the increasing fuel costs.

Over the past year there has been an increase in Camry’s/Aurion’s as taxi’s and police vehicles in place of some of Falcon’s and Commodore’s, and over the past month or so, I have noticed smaller 4 door vehicles such as Toyota Corolla’s and a few of the more expensive Toyota Prius hybrid car’s.

I have also noticed that freight and logistics companies like the Toll Group have been using small vehicles for smaller runs, such as the Hyundai Getz. In addition, during my travels up and down the east Australia over the past couple of months, I have noticed that there are becoming less single trailer trucks around, and the length of both trailers on dual trailer’s has been extending to the point where they are both getting to around the same length.

This is understandable given the prices of fuel, so this brings me to my title, some thoughts and observations about electric cars.

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“Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” (Benjamin Franklin, from Wikiquote)

Or, a more commonly known re-worded version, “Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.” (Wikiquote)

I’ve been reading in the news lately that with the push by Mr Rudd and his Labor ministers to censor the internet of Australians, that there have been pushes from other groups to censor more than the originally proposed pornography sites, including pro-anorexia websites and so on. Now that’s all well and good, I understand their reasoning for wanting to do so. However, once you start censoring content, the question myself and others have asked many times before, is where does it stop?

The above quote rings very true, give up a little liberty for a little security, and there is a good chance that you will lose both.

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When the developers of software released world-wide experience the same problems as end users, it makes you wonder why it wasn’t fixed before it was released.

The release of an email between Microsoft executives during a lawsuit revealed that even they were having problems with the Vista operating system.

Have a read over at the Sydney Morning Herald.

It could be a lot of hot air, but it wouldn’t really surprise me.

The last quote from Microsoft in response to the release of the letters, interestingly enough says that they believe achieved the objectives around making Vista better for the user, yet the same problems still occur now that did during the email transactions. They have improved, but they are definitely still around. Hopefully Service Pack 1 will make a big difference.

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After my blog regarding some theories I have on future direction of some of the major IT companies at the moment, Tim from Spyjournal has added a few additional thoughts and idea’s that are very relevant. I would like to make a few comments on some of them.

Economics

Tim pointed out that the cost, even just in the cost in time lost, is too much for many businesses and corporations to even consider a transition to any other system than what they are currently on, in many cases, Microsoft systems.

I agree with this completely. However, I worked for the I.T. department of the Diamantina Institute at the Princess Alexandra Hospital in Brisbane, nowhere near as big as some of the systems mentioned by Tim, with only 200 or so people regularly there. In my experience there, there were around 250 workstations permanently setup and another 50-100 laptops that were regularly coming and going.

The systems there comprised of around 80% Windows based systems, 15% Mac’s and the remaining 5% on Linux. There were both Windows 2003 servers and Linux servers. By the time I left there, they were just beginning to rollout Vista on the systems, and about 50% of the new workstations over the time I was there were Mac’s.

All of these different systems have to work together, and all of the different systems are needed for different things. Using these diferent systems often resulted in problems with interoperability. It was well setup, and it worked, but problems did arise. There are plenty of other places that use a variety of systems like this, on a larger scale is a large amount of universities, at QUT alone, there are hundreds of Mac’s a large amount of Linux workstations, and thousands of Windows computers.

Reluctance to change

As Tim pointed out, 50% of people are reluctant to change. That is very true, but at the same time, around the same percentage of people are easily influenced by their peers. As I mentioned in my previous blog, Apple has experienced an increase in market share since the Intel-based Mac’s were released. I won’t deny at all that I recommend Mac’s to pretty much everyone that doesn’t explicitly need something available only on Windows, and aside from the few people I know that are extremely anti-Mac (though they are also extremely pro-Vista), when they see how simply my Macbook does things and how intuitive and easy to learn it is, they love it.

In his comment summary, Tim points out that he believes that Apple will never have the weight of the world behind them as Microsoft does. I do agree, to an extent. However, Apple did have it once, around the era of the Apple 2’s and the first Macintosh’s. A long time ago yes, but it does show how big of a change can happen. I do agree, that the chance of Apple regaining the majority of that lost ground is very low. I do believe though that the increase in Mac’s will continue. Microsoft has products on Mac already, so they are already on their way to being interoperable. I am hoping Entourage has better Exchange support in 2008 than 2004, I haven’t been able to find out yet. The point is though, with Microsoft’s announcements of interoperability support, it gives Apple, Microsoft, and other developers more opportunities to increase cross platform compatibility between OS X and Windows, and even Linux. As more becomes available on Mac’s, there is no reason that the market share cannot continue to increase.

This may or may not happen, but there is potential.

In continuing with the ‘reluctance to change’ series of thoughts, some things, such as the Kerio Mail Server, would not make much difference to the end user, except for an increase in client compatibility, it is really only the backend. Again, I agree that a changeover like this in a large business or organisation is largely unviable, it does provide possibilities though.

Integration

My thoughts on this largely overlap with what I have already said. Microsoft systems and software do integrate well with each other, and where this integration is critical, it is worth the extra costs and is no doubt cheaper in the long run. Microsoft would not have been as successful as they are if their solutions were not some of the best. Not every situation is suitable to run solely, or even predominately Microsoft options though, so this is a market that could be very beneficial to both Apple and Microsoft. Increasing interoperability support can only help Microsoft in this area.

Functionality

Yes, Google apps are lightweight solutions. Though I wouldn’t compare Google Documents to Notepad, it is more comparable to Wordpad, except with collaborative features and support for both .doc and .docx files. Yes, Microsoft does provide a better office suite solution than Star or Open Office. While I prefer Microsoft Office to iWork, I find iWork does provide, in some cases, a better solution than Office, particularly in presentations. This overlaps with the reluctance to change. Not everyone agrees with me on this, but Office 2007 is a big change from 2003 and a lot of functionality has become confusing with the ribbon system, not gone, just confusing, it makes performing some functions more difficult and confusing, while it has not provided any increase in the speed or ease at which functions can be performed (in my experiences anyway).

Overview

As Tim says, for Microsoft and Google to join forces may be the smart thing to do, it seems to me that there is competition between the two, in more than just the search area. I do not think that either side would consider a joint option. Acquiring Yahoo would give Microsoft a much needed kick in the right direction for search, and I do believe that Google’s claims about how bad it would be are not really accurate. Yahoo has been an internet pioneer, there is no doubt about that, but so has Microsoft, and Microsoft is not a bad company (I know I make them out to be sometimes). Given their interoperability announcements and so on, Microsoft is taking a new approach into the fields that Google are working towards with their globally accessible applications and information.

I very muchly believe that there are going to be some changes in the industry, they may not be as I had originally been thinking, but it is going to happen, just look at where things are going with Yahoo at the moment, and I do believe that Apple are going to continue to gain more market share, at least for a little while yet. Google are a big player as well, and the competition, both direct and indirect is doing great things.

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