Are we ready for a Cloud-based OS?

April 18, 2010

By Mete Akcaoglu

Let’s start the post watching the video by Chrome OS to understand what the buzz (apparently, you cannot escape using a Google owned word these days.)

By looking at my previous posts (Das Cloud: How I Learned to Ditch the Local and Love the Cloud, What is Google up to now? and a couple of others on Google Docs and Scholar) about Google, I guess me being a Google fanboy should not be a surprise for you. I do admit here, I am not paying a whole great deal of attention to the issues related to Google becoming a dominant power in the market and may turn into a an evil corporation. They might, but, so might Apple or Microsoft (Check out this post and infographic). So, there seems to be no escaping from these giants, although no escape does not mean total submission, I understand. Enough rambling.

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Image created for Gizmodo by Shane Snow [http://shanesnow.com/

Over the last couple of weeks, I constantly find myself opening up my browser whenever I want to open my computer to look for a file. Then, I remembered my initial strong reaction to a cloud-based operating system Google was working on. I didn’t like that a bit. I instantly thought about a potential of not being able to use photoshop, or any other powerful software for that matter. However, I guess, my reaction has been changing. I AM spending almost all my time on my computer on the internet. I am using Google Docs, and at this point, can happily do without Microsoft Word (especially with the new improvements to Google Docs).

Like they say in the video, the boot up time of the computers is really long. And they sure are right about the issue with the updates slowing the computers down, let’s not forget the fact that you do need to pay a substantial amount of money to buy these OSes (I must say Linux offers good alternatives here).

I am not making a substantial point here, but I think what I am trying to say is that every passing day we are becoming more “online.” Our computer time is more and more is becoming “internet time.” At this point, I can happily cancel my cable subscription, if I wasn’t forced to have it as a “bundle” with my internet connection. That being said, leaving our conventional OSes might come as easy and natural in the near future. There are even cloud-based photo editing sites (not that I think they can ever replace the power of Photoshop or Lightroom). And I cannot see why you wouldn’t be able to run PS in the Chrome OS. And, I definitely would still keep a local copy of my files and wouldn’t upload all my files to cloud.

Potentials for education? With a lighter OS, the cost of computers might fall, as we wouldn’t need powerful machines just to do the basics (web browsing and document editing/viewing), and this might ease schools’ technology integration. Especially in the poorer parts of the world. OS would become one less thing to worry about when thinking about costs. (of course, here again, I need to mention the fact that an infrastructure for internet connection and such is needed and there ARE a lot of things to worry about when it comes to technology integration, as we all are aware.)

Would I use Chrome OS, or a cloud-based OS? Like I said, I am getting used to the idea day by day. You?

–P.S. This post has also appeared on the author’s personal blog.